Raekwon, "The Scroll" (In Which Raekwon Compares Himself To Nicole Kidman)

Raekwon, “The Scroll” (In Which Raekwon Compares Himself To Nicole Kidman)

I like this new Raekwon song, especially the bongos and the Spaghetti Western whistle accenting the beat. It’s video, too — a Mission: Impossible-style espionage caper that takes place the city of Tilburg in the Netherlands. But it took me a while to figure out a reference to Nicole Kidman in the lyrics. Raekwon raps, “I’m like Nicole Kidman in the wind…” Now, Raekwon has always rapped in a heavy, cryptic slang; a lexicon sometimes known as “Wu-bonics.” It’s not always easy to parse his meaning. This time, I found it particularly difficult. Raekwon seems very unlike Nicole Kidman. In the wind or out of it, the resemblance is far from obvious. What was he talking about?

Was this a reference to Kidman’s acclaimed performance in the new movie, The Paperboy, in which she famously urinates on Zac Efron? Was Raekwon saying he was “pissing in the wind?” It didn’t seem like that: His voice sounds boastful, not frustrated.

Might Raekwon have been talking about wearing diamond jewelry? He often rhymes about this, and he often calls diamonds “ice” (as on his 1995 classic “Glaciers of Ice”) and Nicole Kidman has reportedly earned herself nicknames like “ice queen” or “ice princess” in some circles, due to a haughty and cold professional demeanor. This explanation seemed unlikely because it was hard to imagine Raekwon ever comparing himself to any kind of queen or princess.

Oh! What about the movie To Die For? With Matt Dillon! That was so great! At the end of that one, Kidman is murdered and her body is dumped into a river that freezes over and Matt Dillon’s sister Ileana Douglas ice-skates on top of her while Donovan’s “Season of the Witch” plays. That’s a very memorable scene — and it’s pretty windy, too. The wind blows the snow off the ice, so you can see Kidman’s face, all dead and frozen. Is Raekwon saying that he’s wearing so much jewelry that he “buried” in ice? That was kind of what “Glaciers of Ice” was about.

Seems like a stretch, right?

The Hours? Raekwon is talking about wearing a prosthetic nose? Disguising himself like Virginia Woolf in order to evade his enemies and execute his mission?

Far and Away? Raekwon is saying that he’s “far and away” the best at what he does? Again, he does sound boastful as he raps.

Dead Calm? Raekwon is saying that he would do anything, even have sex with his enemies — like Nicole Kidman does with the the horrible psychopath Billy Zane, who has kidnapped her on a boat — in order to gain their trust and so be able to assassinate them? (Man, Dead Calm is such a good movie. I haven’t seen that in too long. I met Billy Zane in a bar once, and talked to him for a few minutes. He was super-nice; like, almost strangely nice, and I could help but think, “Oh, man, you’re so creepy. I remember you from Dead Calm.” It made me feel kind of bad. Being famous can’t be easy.)

Flirting, with Thandie Newton?

All these explanations seemed unlikely.

I went back and listened to the song again — to listen closely to the words immediately before and after the mysterious line. I thought maybe I could glean some meaning from context.

It took me a couple runs through, but sure enough! Here’s the Nicole Kidman thing again, with the preceding line:

“Met the others/Lit a blunt begin/I’m like Nicole Kidman in the wind…”

“The others!” The Others is a movie from like ten years ago wherein Nicole Kidman plays a ghost! It’s a lot like Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense. You don’t learn that Kidman is a ghost until the end of the movie. (Sorry if you’ve never seen it before, I just totally ruined it for you. It’s pretty good, that movie, too.)

So Raekwon is saying he’s feeling like a ghost in the wind after he smokes pot. Like he’s invisible. That makes sense! You do get that feeling sometimes, if you’re really stoned.

It’s like on Nas’s “New York State of Mind,” when he says he was “jettin’ through the building lobby/And it was full of children/Probably couldn’t see how high as I be…”

Pot makes you invisible. Nicole Kidman is a ghost. Now it all makes sense.