“I knew I had a classic when I formulated with these nine members in this group. Everything at that time that we was making, we was so sharp, it was super visual already,” Raekwon said of the album. “It was like something that you already knew you could get but it was just a matter of time before you could get it. When I tell you we was all at our best, it was serious!”
Adding to this, Rae noted that his vision was "mapped out" and it let listeners clearly hear what he was thinking as he wrote songs for the album.
“We came with Cuban Linx, my vision was already mapped out in a great way that everybody seen it. It’s like going back to the tapes and saying, ‘Yo this is how we goin' win the war.’ We carefully mapped it out and I knew when I made that album that in the mix of it, I knew it was gonna be something that was gonna shock the world.”