Trailer for Love Don't Live Here No More video:
Ghostface Killah - 36 Seasons (out 12-09-14) *Stream Added*
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Nice piece at Stereogum.com:
The first time I interviewed Ghostface Killah, I waited four hours at the “Back Like That” video shoot for a 10-minute sit-down. This was mostly OK. I got to see the rap-promotions machine in action just before that machine rusted into dust. I got to see Ghostface and Ne-Yo standing on flowerpot risers on the roof of a Jersey City apartment complex so that they could strike poses for a crane shot in front of the New York skyline. I got to meet Ne-Yo, who was extremely pleasant. Dave 1 from Chromeo waited the same amount of time to interview Ghost for Vice, and I talked to him for maybe 15 minutes without recognizing him as the guy from Chromeo. (Mostly, I just wondered why theVice guy was so well-dressed.) At one point, a Wu-Tang associate told me that the crew needed the article I was working on to be “a good one,” made a veiled threat, and then offered to send a girl to my apartment if they liked the article. (I politely declined.) At another point, a bunch of Ghost’s Theodore Unit guys decided they wanted me to interview them, so they grabbed my tape recorder, and this lunacy happened. Even with all that going on, though, I had a lot of time to kill. At one point, I was slumped at a table, reading a comic book and trying not to take up too much space. (I think this is when Marvel’s Civil War was going on, so it was probably one of those.) I heard a voice from above me: “Hey man, what you reading?” I looked up, and Ghostface Killah was standing over me, looking down at my comic book with benign interest. He was wearing a purple bathrobe and a white durag and probably 30 pounds of gold jewelry. He was even bigger than he looks on TV. I may have actually gasped. This was basically like Indiana Jones leaning over your shoulder and asking you about the Warhammer figurine you’re painting. It just about made my brain break.
Ghostface Killah is not a comic book guy. I learned that that day. He was politely interested enough to ask some writer about the comic book he was reading, mostly because he was killing a couple of minutes before filming his next scene. The real comic book guy within Wu-Tang, Ghost told me, is Method Man. (I confirmed this later, when I interviewed Meth. Meth, it turns out, is one of those guys who has a subscription box at his local comic book store; he just walks in, and they hand him a pile of books.) Ghost thinks they’re cool, but they’re not a part of his life. It’s a bit surprising, then, that Ghost’s new album 36 Seasons is a straight-up comic-book project: An album-length narrative about a Staten Island masked vigilante superhero who goes to war with rival criminals and with the cops. The CD booklet is an actual comic-book version of the same story Ghostface raps on the record, and various other rap luminaries play different characters on the album. (Pharoahe Monch, in a pretty inspired casting choice, is the mad scientist who designs Ghostface’s mask, while AZ is the cop friend who goes on to double-cross Ghost.) Ghostface is one of rap’s great storytellers, but the stories he tends to tell are dense, choatic pulpy crime-novel things, not stylized super-warrior stories. He’s into the tactile little details that bring stories down to earth: The bullets whizzing and hitting Clorox bottles in a supermarket shootout, the smell of steak and eggs cooking on the stove of the drug house he’s about to rob. He’s into minutia, not sweep. So it’s vaguely interesting that 36 Seasonswasn’t Ghost’s idea. The entire story comes from comic book writer Matthew Rosenberg, and it seems like the producers approached Ghost and got him involved when the whole narrative had already been laid out. Ghost wrote his own lyrics, of course, but he did it based on a narrative and musical framework that already existed. He’s a leading man who’s also a script doctor.
The album works, though, for reasons that have less to do with its narrative and more to do with the fact that it’s just Ghostface and various crusty New York rap friends going in for 40 minutes. As with Ghostface’s last album, 2013′s Adrian Younge collab 12 Reasons To Die, 36 Seasons unites Ghost with studio-session players who can recreate the ’70s-era soul sound that he loves so much. This time around, his primary collaborators are the Revelations, a New York soul band who have done a ton of work with various Wu-Tang guys over the years. The album has actual rap producers — longtime New York fixture the 45 King, M.O.P.’s Lil Fame working under his Fizzy Womack alter-ego. But even with those guys’ tracks, the Revelations are there to play the music organically. At one point, the action breaks for the band to cover the Persuaders’ 1971 classic “Thin Line Between Love And Hate.” Ghost sounds perfectly at home on this stuff, and so do AZ and Kool G Rap and Pharoahe Monch and the various other guests here. You can follow the narrative if you want, but it’s easier, and more rewarding, to just zone out on the solid orchestral boom-bap. Because of the sponsored-work nature of the album, Ghost’s narrative doesn’t have the breathless urgency that he had on, say, “Shaky Dog” or “Yolanda’s House.” But it’s some of rap’s all-time great voices on late-career cruise-control, over music that just makes sense for them. 36 Seasons isn’t an important or even a great album, but its pleasures are small and durable. It’s a fun listen, and that’s all it needs to be.
Given that is coming out only a week after the Wu-Tang Clan’s grand reunion album A Better Tomorrow, it seems natural to compare the two albums, and to wonder if there’s some release-date passive-aggression going on on Ghost’s part. Ghost seemed barely there on A Better Tomorrow, and he isn’t exactly the most committed member in the reunited Wu-Tang. Maybe he’s registering some displeasure with RZA by releasing his own album almost immediately after the new Wu finally arrived — something that seems more likely when you consider that no other Wu-Tang guys appear on 36 Seasons. More likely, though, I think we’re seeing the beginning of a voraciously productive period from Ghost. For whatever reason, Ghostface simply cannot sit still right now. Sour Soul, his collaborative album with the Toronto jazz group BADBADNOTGOOD, is coming in only a couple of months. He’s also claimed, in different interviews, that he’ll release his long-awaited collaborative album with DOOM next year, as well as the intriguing Supreme Clientele 2. I love the idea of Ghost somehow releasing four albums within a calendar year, like a ’70s jazz musician or something. He’s not doing the whole album-release cycle thing; he’s picking a theme for each release, knocking it out, and moving on to the next one. And while 36 Seasons doesn’t have the same musical-auteur sensibility that RZA brought to A Better Tomorrow, I like it a bit better. It’s shorter, more focused, less weighed down with sleepy verses. Everyone has a role, and everyone plays it. And if it’s not a passion project for Ghost, that’s fine; he’s got a pile of other things he wants to get to. Don’t bet against him doing all of it, either.
http://www.stereogum.com/1723812/album-of-the-week-ghostface-killah-36-seasons/franchises/album-of-the-week/
The first time I interviewed Ghostface Killah, I waited four hours at the “Back Like That” video shoot for a 10-minute sit-down. This was mostly OK. I got to see the rap-promotions machine in action just before that machine rusted into dust. I got to see Ghostface and Ne-Yo standing on flowerpot risers on the roof of a Jersey City apartment complex so that they could strike poses for a crane shot in front of the New York skyline. I got to meet Ne-Yo, who was extremely pleasant. Dave 1 from Chromeo waited the same amount of time to interview Ghost for Vice, and I talked to him for maybe 15 minutes without recognizing him as the guy from Chromeo. (Mostly, I just wondered why theVice guy was so well-dressed.) At one point, a Wu-Tang associate told me that the crew needed the article I was working on to be “a good one,” made a veiled threat, and then offered to send a girl to my apartment if they liked the article. (I politely declined.) At another point, a bunch of Ghost’s Theodore Unit guys decided they wanted me to interview them, so they grabbed my tape recorder, and this lunacy happened. Even with all that going on, though, I had a lot of time to kill. At one point, I was slumped at a table, reading a comic book and trying not to take up too much space. (I think this is when Marvel’s Civil War was going on, so it was probably one of those.) I heard a voice from above me: “Hey man, what you reading?” I looked up, and Ghostface Killah was standing over me, looking down at my comic book with benign interest. He was wearing a purple bathrobe and a white durag and probably 30 pounds of gold jewelry. He was even bigger than he looks on TV. I may have actually gasped. This was basically like Indiana Jones leaning over your shoulder and asking you about the Warhammer figurine you’re painting. It just about made my brain break.
Ghostface Killah is not a comic book guy. I learned that that day. He was politely interested enough to ask some writer about the comic book he was reading, mostly because he was killing a couple of minutes before filming his next scene. The real comic book guy within Wu-Tang, Ghost told me, is Method Man. (I confirmed this later, when I interviewed Meth. Meth, it turns out, is one of those guys who has a subscription box at his local comic book store; he just walks in, and they hand him a pile of books.) Ghost thinks they’re cool, but they’re not a part of his life. It’s a bit surprising, then, that Ghost’s new album 36 Seasons is a straight-up comic-book project: An album-length narrative about a Staten Island masked vigilante superhero who goes to war with rival criminals and with the cops. The CD booklet is an actual comic-book version of the same story Ghostface raps on the record, and various other rap luminaries play different characters on the album. (Pharoahe Monch, in a pretty inspired casting choice, is the mad scientist who designs Ghostface’s mask, while AZ is the cop friend who goes on to double-cross Ghost.) Ghostface is one of rap’s great storytellers, but the stories he tends to tell are dense, choatic pulpy crime-novel things, not stylized super-warrior stories. He’s into the tactile little details that bring stories down to earth: The bullets whizzing and hitting Clorox bottles in a supermarket shootout, the smell of steak and eggs cooking on the stove of the drug house he’s about to rob. He’s into minutia, not sweep. So it’s vaguely interesting that 36 Seasonswasn’t Ghost’s idea. The entire story comes from comic book writer Matthew Rosenberg, and it seems like the producers approached Ghost and got him involved when the whole narrative had already been laid out. Ghost wrote his own lyrics, of course, but he did it based on a narrative and musical framework that already existed. He’s a leading man who’s also a script doctor.
The album works, though, for reasons that have less to do with its narrative and more to do with the fact that it’s just Ghostface and various crusty New York rap friends going in for 40 minutes. As with Ghostface’s last album, 2013′s Adrian Younge collab 12 Reasons To Die, 36 Seasons unites Ghost with studio-session players who can recreate the ’70s-era soul sound that he loves so much. This time around, his primary collaborators are the Revelations, a New York soul band who have done a ton of work with various Wu-Tang guys over the years. The album has actual rap producers — longtime New York fixture the 45 King, M.O.P.’s Lil Fame working under his Fizzy Womack alter-ego. But even with those guys’ tracks, the Revelations are there to play the music organically. At one point, the action breaks for the band to cover the Persuaders’ 1971 classic “Thin Line Between Love And Hate.” Ghost sounds perfectly at home on this stuff, and so do AZ and Kool G Rap and Pharoahe Monch and the various other guests here. You can follow the narrative if you want, but it’s easier, and more rewarding, to just zone out on the solid orchestral boom-bap. Because of the sponsored-work nature of the album, Ghost’s narrative doesn’t have the breathless urgency that he had on, say, “Shaky Dog” or “Yolanda’s House.” But it’s some of rap’s all-time great voices on late-career cruise-control, over music that just makes sense for them. 36 Seasons isn’t an important or even a great album, but its pleasures are small and durable. It’s a fun listen, and that’s all it needs to be.
Given that is coming out only a week after the Wu-Tang Clan’s grand reunion album A Better Tomorrow, it seems natural to compare the two albums, and to wonder if there’s some release-date passive-aggression going on on Ghost’s part. Ghost seemed barely there on A Better Tomorrow, and he isn’t exactly the most committed member in the reunited Wu-Tang. Maybe he’s registering some displeasure with RZA by releasing his own album almost immediately after the new Wu finally arrived — something that seems more likely when you consider that no other Wu-Tang guys appear on 36 Seasons. More likely, though, I think we’re seeing the beginning of a voraciously productive period from Ghost. For whatever reason, Ghostface simply cannot sit still right now. Sour Soul, his collaborative album with the Toronto jazz group BADBADNOTGOOD, is coming in only a couple of months. He’s also claimed, in different interviews, that he’ll release his long-awaited collaborative album with DOOM next year, as well as the intriguing Supreme Clientele 2. I love the idea of Ghost somehow releasing four albums within a calendar year, like a ’70s jazz musician or something. He’s not doing the whole album-release cycle thing; he’s picking a theme for each release, knocking it out, and moving on to the next one. And while 36 Seasons doesn’t have the same musical-auteur sensibility that RZA brought to A Better Tomorrow, I like it a bit better. It’s shorter, more focused, less weighed down with sleepy verses. Everyone has a role, and everyone plays it. And if it’s not a passion project for Ghost, that’s fine; he’s got a pile of other things he wants to get to. Don’t bet against him doing all of it, either.
http://www.stereogum.com/1723812/album-of-the-week-ghostface-killah-36-seasons/franchises/album-of-the-week/
Brad Piff
The Money & The Miles
I Got Werk
Pro
Kinda obvious since none of the other Revelations shyt sounds like thisDon Cornelius
Although he ain't rapping on this, GFK's use of 70s soul classics is second to none and one of my favorite aspects of his artistic work
If he only had joined Rae on that mixtape
There's tracks on here with Ghost rapping where I genuinely thought he was Cappadonna.
Musically it's alright but god damn Ghost has lost all his spark, all sense of surreal lyricism and his gift for wild offcentre imagery is gone. He just raps like some random D Block weed carrier.
Tragic.
Musically it's alright but god damn Ghost has lost all his spark, all sense of surreal lyricism and his gift for wild offcentre imagery is gone. He just raps like some random D Block weed carrier.
Tragic.
Don Cornelius
Although he ain't rapping on this, GFK's use of 70s soul classics is second to none and one of my favorite aspects of his artistic work
If he only had joined Rae on that mixtape
That old school shyt
Foxmulder
Superstar
Nikka stfuThere's tracks on here with Ghost rapping where I genuinely thought he was Cappadonna.
Musically it's alright but god damn Ghost has lost all his spark, all sense of surreal lyricism and his gift for wild offcentre imagery is gone. He just raps like some random D Block weed carrier.
Tragic.
If you don't think Ghost fell off on this album then you were never really a fan in the first place.
Why lie to yourself and be like "Oh shyt.....Ghost is killing it, brehs." Don't delude yourself. It's like listening to a different rapper.
Why lie to yourself and be like "Oh shyt.....Ghost is killing it, brehs." Don't delude yourself. It's like listening to a different rapper.
ZEB WALTON
ayo! - BEZ
damn I thought every track 1-5 was fire. im on 5 now. first listen... album sounds better than a better tomorrowehhhh, id put it in the same boat as 12 Reasons. don't like any of the first 5 tracks at all, boring melodies
it picks up by the middle, don't like the beats at the end. wasting some choice AZ verses
Homicide
need to give it more spins, sounding like a 5/10 joint. not something id cop sorry Starks
There's tracks on here with Ghost rapping where I genuinely thought he was Cappadonna.
Musically it's alright but god damn Ghost has lost all his spark, all sense of surreal lyricism and his gift for wild offcentre imagery is gone. He just raps like some random D Block weed carrier.
Tragic.
Man, stfu. Always fvcking crying. Ol' grumpy ass f@ggot.
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I know this is a GFK album
But, AZ Snoop Dogg the building Cash Rules Everything Around Me...Crown Me
Each of his verses were Hip-Hop quotables
Monch didn't have to do that
, on Emergency Procedure; just VULGAR
GRap, show them how to do this son The Wallabee Champ basically played an extra
in his own movie, tho
But, Soulful Hip-Hop
is all a 90s kid need for XMAS
But, AZ Snoop Dogg the building Cash Rules Everything Around Me...Crown Me Each of his verses were Hip-Hop quotables Monch didn't have to do that, on Emergency Procedure; just VULGAR GRap, show them how to do this son The Wallabee Champ basically played an extra in his own movie, tho But, Soulful Hip-Hop is all a 90s kid need for XMAS
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This with Supreme Clientele Presents... Blue & Cream: The Wally Era, and DoomStark album will make an old 90s kid cypher completeWhat can your fans expect from you in the future?
Just look out for that Blue & Cream, the sequel to Supreme Clientele. It's almost finished. I'm trying to see if I can release it sometime in August, September 2015, somewhere in the fourth quarter. I got Twelve Reasons to Die part two coming out. And I'm with Raekwon, and we're gonna do this third Only Built 4 Cuban Linx album. There's a whole lot of stuff. I got books full of music.
I feel like the concept was executed well and the production is far better than 12 reasons, which was my main gripe with it. Az and G rap shine too and Ghost does his thing imo
Mantle Drunk
All Star
Best ghost album since fish scale which really isn't saying much. Blows a better tomorrow out of the water. Was really surprised with this. Wish we could of gotten some wu on it but g rap and az will do.