The 12 Days of Wu-Mas #8 - My Gut Reaction: Ghostface Killah - Ghostface Killahs (September 13, 2019)

Since roughly 2011, Dennis “Ghostface Killah” Coles has been just plain bored with what you and I generally refer to as “hip hop”. Even with his standing as one of the most popular and most critically acclaimed members of the Wu-Tang Clan, he grew tired of turning the same type of album in to the label every couple of years, so he forced a paradigm switch, challenging himself to write cohesive narratives while opting to work with like-minded artists who could help him see his vision through to fruition. This is how we ended up with a run of projects like the two Adrian Younge-assisted Twelve Reasons To Die albums (still waiting on that trilogy capper, buddy), the Revelations-backed 36 Seasons, his joint effort with Czarface (Czarface Meets Ghostface, which was produced entirely by the Czar-Keys and totally counts here), and the BADBADNOTGOOD collaboration Sour Soul, all of which featured our host working closely with a single producer or production team to give the listener seamless audio stories to enjoy.

This shouldn’t have been much of a shock to anyone following Ghost’s face throughout the years – he’s the same dude who managed to trick Def Jam Records into releasing what he kept referring to as an “R&B album” (Ghostdini: Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City) in 2009, even though he wasn’t really singing on it. The man had been tired of this rap shit for a while, which also helps explain 2012’s Wu Block project alongside Sheek Louch (challenging himself to work with a partner that isn’t Raekwon for the duration of an album), and also could be applied to last year’s horseshit that was The Lost Tapes, where M-80 compiled a bunch of vocals from various artists and gave them to three different producers (Big Ghost Ltd., Agallah, and Bronze Nazareth), somehow getting three full-length compilation albums from one set of fucking vocals (more or less) – if you look at the way I am, you’ll see that Ghostface Killah was so goddamn tired of creating music that he let someone else craft a Ghost album for him.

2019 saw Pretty Toney swerve back onto course, however briefly, with Ghostface Killahs, a return to the non-linear boasts-n-bullshit that fans of Ironman, Supreme Clientele, and Fishscale still prize today. Although the man had never truly stopped recording music, I’m not entirely certain why he decided that Ghostface Killahs had to be his comeback album of sorts: maybe he was tired of the criticism levied his way toward his previous more “artistic” pursuits (there aren’t many rappers well-known in the mainstream that choose to go full-on giallo for a project or two), or perhaps he just wanted to get back to the basics (which kind of sucks for me, because I thoroughly enjoyed the Twelve Reasons to Die series, but I understand why others may not). As such, the subject of today’s write-up is a straightforward album from Tony Starks, with the bells, whistles, and Wu-Tang Clan member cameos that come with that.

Ghostface hasn’t entirely given up on his dreams, though: with the exception of the skits, every track on Ghostface Killahs is handled by producer Danny Caiazzo, likely best known for… his work on Inspectah Deck’s Chamber No. 9, an album I wrote about yesterday. Coming from relative obscurity to being the primary producer for the “back-to-basics” albums from two of the Wu-Tang Clan’s lyrical giants is quite the flex, I have to say. Ghostface Killahs also shares an executive producer with Chamber No. 9, as Ross “Remedy” Fuller helped guide this project into existence, likely while his “Never Again” played in his head for the jillionth time. Both projects were also primarily marketed via promotional mailing lists and, later, through the artists’ own websites, although you can now find both on most platforms.

Ghostface Killahs features far more Wu-Tang involvement than Inspectah Deck’s earlier effort, however. (Hell, Deck even pops up on here in a show of solidarity.) Theodore Unit member Shawn Wigs is credited as an executive producer, and Solomon Childs comes through a couple of times. Ghost even convinced the likes of Method Man, Cappadonna, and Masta Killa to contribute verses. One big name that is missing, however, is the aforementioned Raekwon the Chef, who seems to be going out of his way to avoid working alongside his one-time rhyme partner, but I’m likely reading too much into that shit, as I tend to do when I get bored and start drifting into tangents oooh is it me or does that cloud kind-of look like this cloud over here except

1. KILLAH INTRO

Hearing Ghostface Killahs open with a lengthy sound bite from a kung-fu flick reminded me that this was something that had been missing from Ghostface Killah’s run of single-producer projects and concept albums of late. At least Pretty Toney hasn’t entirely forgotten his roots? Then again, Chamber No. 9 kicked off pretty much exactly the same way, so...

2. ME DENNY & DARRYL (FEAT. CAPPADONNA & METHOD MAN)

Although I completely understand where the title stems from (Method Man’s cameo verse features the titular line, as he’s referring to the team of himself and his co-stars by their government names), “Me Denny & Darryl” reads like a track title off of a Meth solo album, right? Anyway, Caiazzo’s instrumental is alright: nothing fancy, but it gets us from points A to B. The performances are what this song will live or die from, and thankfully everyone sounded pretty good. Our host turns in the worst verse, but it was still good, laser-focused with his murderous threats and rather-well-thought-out kidnapping plot. But he’s hyper-serious here, whereas Cappadonna and Meth are far more casual with their threats: Cap made me spit out my coffee with his line, “Your wack flows suck and exhaust me,” which isn’t a terribly funny line, but it worked for me in the moment, while Johnny Blaze steals the show as a calm, collected criminal who doesn’t give a shit about your right to a continued existence. Pretty good, actually.

3. BURNER TO BURNER (FEAT. INSPECTAH DECK & CAPPADONNA)
Caiazzo works in some fuzzy guitar chords for his “Burner to Burner” instrumental, which works just as well as “Me Denny & Darryl” in terms of a Wu-Tang posse cut. Meth is subbed out for Inspectah Deck, but otherwise the ingredients remain the same, all three participants spitting that raw shit. As expected, Deck shines brightest, as he thrives in a competitive environment, and Cappadonna adds another notch to his belt, his last bar, “Fuck you and your friends, n---a, you can’t park here,” just goddamned hilarious. It’s Ghost himself that suffers here: his stream-of-consciousness boasts-n-bullshit is technically proficient, but rather than just pulling his ideas out of thin air, he makes sure to throw in some 1990’s-level homophobia and misogyny that sounds fucking harsh, even though it’s not like these are new subjects for Tony Starks to explore. Ah well, I still liked the song, though.

4. FLEX (FEAT. HARLEY)

Our host’s two verses all describe various flexes, which he’s certainly entitled to do, given his long history within our chosen culture and all, but while he at least sounds awake and focused on “Flex” (as opposed to his last couple of albums, where his performances were borderline, “Fuck you, just give me my money already”), the content is pretty meh overall. Ghost’s coke raps flow into misogyny so effortlessly that you just know he still believes in all of it in real life, getting his DJ Khaled on (“Bitches with tongue rings fresh out the geisha house / Did everything to these hos but never ate them out” – um, there’s a lot to unpack in that couplet, but my main takeaway for now is that no, you didn’t do “everything” to these “hos”) while bragging about being “the black Tom Selleck”, because that’s surely a reference that kids will understand, sure. (Pretty Toney’s target demographic probably watches a lot of Blue Bloods, now that I think about it.) The beat is okay-ish, but guest crooner Harley’s (boring) hook prevents “Flex” from bring a proper solo effort. Can someone transcribe the audio of my eyes rolling so I can make that my review of this song?

5. NEWS REPORT (SKIT)

Leads into…

6. CONDITIONING

The first song released from Ghostface Killahs is the actual true solo song “Conditioning”, a melodic, but repetitive, loop over which Ghostface Killah singular spits a bunch of unrelated bullshit as only he can. The music video for this track plays up a violent heist that it seems like the preceding skit was supposed to prepare you two for, but when removed from the visual context, “Conditioning” is merely a shit-talking session where an obviously older, but necessarily wiser, Ghost trues to reach back into his past for lyrical inspiration. It didn’t really work for me: I thought the man calling himself a “price writer” was unbelievably corny (and questionable, depending on how much you buy into the allegations of ghostwriting), and the unnecessary homophobic content and how he pokes fun at someone with a stutter just felt overtly ugly for a song such as this from a rapper such as Ghostface Killah. In 2019, if one really can’t come up with better, more clever insults as opposed to falling back on dead clichés, you’ve got a fucking problem. Also, I absolutely hated the video so much that I never bothered with the other clips Tony Starks released to promote Ghostface Killahs, so I may have missed some additional story and context that the other videos provided, but I just don’t give a shit. Shrug. “Conditioning” was just dull.

7. FLY EVERYTHING (FEAT. SUN GOD & SHAWN WIGS)

Fucking hated this claptrap as well. “Fly Everything”, with a title that sounds too close to that of a song Shakira has on the soundtrack to Zootopia, features a garbage Caiazzo instrumental that Ghostface is so uneasy with that his performance is among the worst I’ve ever heard in his entire twenty-six year career: he never manages to find a pocket, so he throws words into a void, hoping his bars will find some sort of destination, and my fuck they did not. They never had a chance, really. Ugh. Theodore Unit’s Shawn Wigs only provides the hook, so he’s immaterial here (I mean, he’s credited as one of the executive producers and is rumored to have written some of Ghost’s bars for this album, so he’ll be fine), but the true casualty of this disaster is Sun God, our host’s own son, whose verse is buried underneath the pile of discordant noises and samples that Caiazzo proudly refers to as an “instrumental”. How can you make Ghostface Killah sound like an amateur this deep into his lifespan?

8. PARTY OVER HERE

The second single, whose title is spoken multiple times throughout the song, but is misleading regardless: “Party Over Here” isn’t a commercial stab at radio-ready content at all. Rather, it’s Ghostface Killah celebrating a recent score at a nightclub, unable to stop himself from threatening everyone he comes in contact with even though he’s already won. And he’s a fucking asshole about it: during the first verse, he aggressively attacks anyone within the vicinity who might think about calling him a “pussy”, but does so in a fascinatingly abhorrent manner that actually means the opposite of what he wants to say if you read the lyrics (his hyper-sexist bar setting a world record for despicable treatment of a gender he claims to enjoy the company of otherwise). The beat is also not club-friendly, which is kind of funny, his organ-laced concoction instead fitting the gutter crime tales contained wherein. It wouldn’t have been a bad song, but Ghostface Killah actively makes it bad. Wow.

9. PISTOL SMOKE (FEAT. SOLOMON CHILDS)

Also pure excrement in audio form. Sure, Solomon Childs appears on “Pistol Smoke”, which is kind of shocking, considering that this isn’t a poorly marketed-and-distributed Wu-affiliated effort pressed-to-order for some third-rate record label by an alleged RZA disciple who you’d have never heard of otherwise – it’s Ghostface fucking Killah. But his hook (which is all he’s allowed to contribute) is terrible, about on par with Pretty Toney’s aggressively laughable verses, where he aims for concise crime tales spiked with unique details that only add to the realism, but ends up sounding like regretful words from an old man whose glory days were twenty fucking years ago. That there’s even more homophobic content on here isn’t surprising (what is this, an 1980’s teen comedy?), but his bar on “Pistol Smoke” is so hateful that Tony Starks would likely find himself protested by GLAAD… had they any idea Ghostface Killahs even existed. The beat isn’t as bad as it was on “Fly Everything”, but it’s pretty goddamn close. Groan.

10. REVOLUTION (SKIT)

…

11. NEW WORLD (FEAT. EAMON)

“New World” is Dennis Coles at his most socially conscious. Typically, when the man gets serious on one of his solo albums he talks about his mother or his childhood or something in that vein, not necessarily societal ills. “New World” is an attempt by our host to backtrack on the sheer hatred found elsewhere on Ghostface Killahs and the effort is appreciated, but hollow. The instrumental is bass-heavy and decent, rolling along like a Sunday drive around the block, but Toney’s bars are less observational and more holier-than-thou, and he even somehow managed to let these lines slip past his executive producers: “The babies got it harder than ever / They calling them the Internet babies.” That’s wild corny, son. Guest crooner Eamon, who also hails from Staten Island so it’s weird that he isn’t brought into recording sessions from the various members of the Wu-Tang Clan far more often, contributes the hook and outro as though he were visiting from an entirely different galaxy and is singing to a different instrumental, especially when he hits those high notes. This was a puzzling listen.

12. WAFFLES AND ICE CREAM (FEAT. CAPPADONNA)

Just as I had feared when I first read that song title, “Waffles and Ice Cream” is an updated version of Raekwon’s ode to breasts, “Ice Cream”. There have been other sequels and retreads of the original “Ice Cream” before, but those at least included Chef Raekwon in some capacity: “Waffles and Ice Cream” onlyfeatures turns from the other two rappers that provided verses on that seminal track, Ghost and Cappadonna, but not Rae, whose absence is unmistakably a commentary on how he felt about this concept, as he likely felt that his partner-in-rhyme would make a mockery of his song (which our host absolutely does). Ghost and Cap play off of lyrics borrowed from the original take, building to more aggressively wanton desires (instead of merely insinuating it with compliments and euphemisms, during the hook our host comes right out and says, “Let’s have sex”) with subtlety tossed out the window of Cappadonna’s moving gypsy cab. Literally this entire fucking thing is cringe-worthy, from the instrumental, which makes no effort to replicate RZA’s original (this is a good thing, ultimately), to Ghost and Cap themselves, who flow so shamelessly here that it’s embarrassing/. The only remotely clever aspect of this spinoff is how the hook has been updated to say, “Watch these rap dudes slide all up in your texts,” which doesn’t exactly update the concept for the twenty-first century, but I’m not convinced that Ghostface Killah even knows what a DM is. Ugh. And you may have noticed that I left the fourth “Ice Cream” participant out of this discussion: Method Man sort-of appears on here, in sample form only, as sound bites from an early demo called “The Ice Cream Man” help move the track along, so that was at least one thing Wu stans can glom on to here. But yes, this was mortifying to listen to.

13. THE CHASE (FEAT. SUN GOD)

Although, given his voice and delivery, I kind of wish U-God had been given the Sun God role on here as they sound similar (at least on this track), “The Chase” still kind of banged. Honestly! A definite step up in quality from the past, oh, nine fucking songs or so, “The Chase” features our host and his son (portraying a mere accomplice, because hearing him shout, “Dad!”, would have added one too many layers to this story that already doesn’t have a lot of time to weave its web) on the run from the cops a la N.W.A.’s “100 Miles & Runnin’”, an influence name-checked by Sun toward the end. The Caiazzo instrumental is fast-paced and panicky, a perfect mix for the mindstate of our protagonists here. Ghost eschews all of the wildly offensive horseshit his brain has forced his mouth to pump out in favor of a straightforward narrative as he and his guest plot out their escape plan on the fly. This was kind of great: it’s nice to hear Pretty Toney this focused, the music was up to par, and it was exciting as hell. About goddamn time.

14. SOURSOP (FEAT. MASTA KILLA, HARLEY, & SOLOMON CHILDS)

Apparently the plan conceived during “The Chase” had Ghostface Killah running his ass all the way to Jamaica, if “Soursop” is any indication. The beat is far more relaxed than that of the previous effort, allowing Pretty Toney and guest star Masta Killa room to breathe before unleashing their thoughts. Crooner Harley returns for this finale to provide the hook, which wasn’t necessary, but sounds more pleasing than his work on “Flex”, while Solomon Childs is credited, but once again barely contributes anything. Which is okay, as this is more of a battle between Ironman and the High Chief, and Masta Killa steals the show with a calm verse that, unexpectedly, meshes beautifully with the reggae sounds underneath. Not exactly how I expected Ghostface Killahs to end, so this only adds to my argument that this was just a collection of random songs with no true sense of cohesion, but I still found “Soursop” to be alright. At least Elgin’s verse, anyway.

THE LAST WORD: In a similar vein to its unofficial sister project, Inspectah Deck’s Chamber No. 9, Ghostface Killahs is all over the place, never once hammering down just why it is listeners even enjoy hearing from Ghostface Killah in the first place. And just like its unofficial predecessor, Ghostface Killahs is a fucking slog to sit through. Even with its relatively brief run time, there are only three good-to-decent songs to be found here, although, to be fair, the three I’m referring to are fucking flames, so that’s nice. “The Chase”, “Me Denny & Darryl”, and “Burner to Burner” aren’t worth the price of admission, but if you already have this shit in your collection anyway, it’s nice to know that at least there’s something on here you’ll likely enjoy, right?

My problem with Ghostface Killahs stems from the outright laziness coming from our host: it wouldn’t surprise me in the least bit to discover that every verse on here was also taken from M-80’s stash, that’s how unstuck in time all of this happens to sound, and that isn’t a good thing in this case. Danny Caiazzo’s instrumentals also mostly stand out for how incomplete they sound: I don’t doubt that the man has a future in this game, but I wish there was something stickier about the musical backing, as Ghost appears to rap not even knowing what’s playing underneath him at times. A better way for me to have written this paragraph is as follows: the beats are mostly boring, and Ghost kind of sucks. This makes “Me Denny & Darryl” more of an outlier than it should be.

I feel Ghostface Killah is still capable of releasing entertaining product, but Ghostface Killahs has left me wondering whether or not someone should insist on telling the man “no” far more often. It hurt my head and my heart to listen to some of these performances, which could have been generated from the pen of literally anybody: there’s very little Pretty Toney in these bars. It doesn’t really matter if, say, Method Man sounded terrific here – this isn't a Method Man album. And don’t even get me started on how fucking cheap the album artwork (both front and back cover) looks – it’s as though Ghost sent one of his goons to FedEx the morning that the album needed to be turned in and asked the cashier to design the cover from scratch in ten minutes. Everyone involved deserved much better, and I’m including Ghostface, Caiazzo, and you two readers in that assessment.

TL:DR – Meh.
 

-Max

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Catch up on the Ghostface Killah saga here.