Rza's production on Supreme Clientele
- Thread starter mr. smoke weed
- Start date
Big Mel
@bigboss
This is a goat account. I made the mistake of buying a Kurzweil as my first piece of equipment.
Big Mel
@bigboss
KravenMorehead™
Barrel Brothers.®
When you go into the production of this album, you have to put a few things in context:
1) It was a sample heavy album in an era when the sample was dead. The sound of the last couple years had switched to keyboard with Swizz, Timbaland, Beats by the Pound & others being the dominant sounds in hip-hop. Then Ghost comes through with an unapologetically sample-heavy album flipping the game and inspiring Kanye, Just Blaze & more for the sound of the next half decade.
- Kanye
And remember that this was even marketed as a throwback sample-based album as the promo tape had the Break Beatz interludes as exclusives:
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01 Apollo Kids
02 Fish
03 Break Beatz 1
04 Ice Water
05 Mighty Healthy
06 Verbal Intercourse
07 Break Beatz 2
08 All That I Got Is You
09 Cobrah Clutch
10 260
11 Break Beatz 3
12 Wildflower
13 One
Break Beatz 1 being a snippet of The Grain and 2 & 3 being combined for later mixtapes as Milkcrates
2) The crafting of an album. Ghost & RZA collected tons of beats and Ghost picked & chose what he wanted for the final product and RZA shaped it from there. This was again coming in an era where a ton of differentproducers on every album was becoming the standard & usually the albums suffered for it b/c they were sounding like random compilations than whole crafted albums. Here, RZA & Ghost grabbed up beats from all over and whittled down to what specifically fit the sound, voice & mood of the project. There are a ton of different sounds on here but they all sound uniquely Ghostface & Wu and they work well together and it flows as an album. This album was a co-production of RZA & Ghost completely and they both need to be recognized equally in what defined Supreme Clientele's sound.
3) The blessing of the Canadian version. For whatever reason, an early version of Supreme Clientele made it to the Canadian Sony factories and they pumped out that version w/ the American version's booklet & the American version had the Canadian booklet and everyone is wondering what's up with all these songs I don't have? For anyone wondering, full tracklist of SC Maple Leaf:
Canadian Version:
01. Nutmeg feat RZA (prod by Black Moes-Art)
02. One feat TMF (prod by JuJu)
03. Saturday Nite/Impossible verse rerecorded feat Tekitha/Iron's Theme feat RZA (prod by Carlos "Six July Broady"/RZA & 4th Disciple/RZA)
04. In The Rain feat The Dramatics (prod by Ron Banks)
05. Mighty Healthy (prod by Allah Mathematics)
06. Apollo Kids feat Raekwon/Clyde Smith skit w/ Raekwon (prod by Hassan)
07. Buck 50 feat Meth, Cappa & Redman/Stroke of Death feat Solomon Childs & RZA/ Woodrow The Basehead skit w/o background music (prod by RZA/RZA)
08. Deck's Beat feat 60 Second Assassin (prod by Deck, duh)
09. G-Dini feat Superb (prod by Blaquesmiths)
10. Malcolm (prod by Choo "The Specializt")
11. We Made It feat Superb, Chip Banks & Hell Razah/ Who Would You fukk skit (prod by Carlos "Six July" Broady/RZA)
12. Child's Play w/o beat switch (prod by RZA)
13. Cherchez La Ghost feat U-God & Madame Majestic (prod by C12)
14. Wu-Banga 101 w/o last Ghost verse feat GZA, Raekwon, Cappa & Masta/Iron's Theme feat RZA (prod by Allah Mathematics/RZA)
so, as you see, it's a different vibe & feel on the Canadian version w/ tracks mashed together, rearranged, different beats, different songs, etc... and lets you know how finely crafted that final version was, even though stuff on the Canadian version is dope like In The Rain or the b*stards beat version of Ghost Deini or the novelty of Ghost re-spitting his verse from Impossible (with the announcer stopping the album for "one of the illest verses of all time"). It's a cool look inside the process of finishing off an album and backing instrumentals to skits, and adding beat-switches & arranging tracks that you rarely get to see.
On top of that, you have other cuts from the SC sessions like the aforementioned Milkcrates/Break Beatz:
the classick Cobra Clutch:
Windpipe feat RZA & ODB was originally for SC as well but I agree with pulling it off as it wouldn't fit on the album:
Cherchez La Ghost had remixes w/ extra Ghost verses both over the original beat & this version:
And there was an alternate version of In the Rain/Wise w/ Stevie J & Mr. Dalvin that only surfaced on a DJ Green Lantern tape
and, on top of that, here's a barbershop skit cut from Supreme Clientele that was on a Razor Sharp sampler tape from 2000:
http://lavishbungalows.com/post/37213398875/ghostface-killah-watch-how-you-cut-my-shyt
and I still want to hear "Iron Vacation" unless it just turned into another track (like Ghostbond = Apollo Kids)
But overall, through all this process, you see what work it took to take the time to assemble, arrange & form and, when samples didn't clear, reform this album into the production classic it was, is and will remain.
Big Mel
@bigboss
either way, Ghostface was definitely implying that some longdikking would go down. He wouldn't miss such an easy layup with a name like that on a skit like that (which, by the way, is my favorite rap skit ever).
Big Mel
@bigboss
Playing this album now. been a good 5 years or so. this takes me back to place i've squelched away.
i met this named Rhonda from way down yonder....
glad to see some other Stat cats in here. Some new blood.
i met this named Rhonda from way down yonder....
glad to see some other Stat cats in here. Some new blood.
ZEB WALTON
ayo! - BEZ
Recheck the credits. Rza made quite a few beats on the album. He also did all the skits and reprogrammed every beat. If people can say dre produced the chronic albums, rza did supreme
KravenMorehead™
Barrel Brothers.®
was about to say that
How the fukk you come into a featured appreciation thread where cats are finding out new gems about a classic 15 year old disc, and act like a hoe? As stated by me and confirmed by Tua WHO WAS THERE rza and ghost re-mixed and re mastered every beat. Don't be a bytch because I didn't give ya barber props.
Word is Ghost was in benin(@Tuaminator @BuddahMAC ) and wrote the rhymes prior to the beats even being thought of. That'd explain the sparse drums, although there's a changeup about once every 30 seconds with a drum roll. Sample was probably a guitar chord looped. shyt is tough .
he must have caught the ghost (pun intended). Is he a square? A square can't make a beat like that, unless on total accident.
The beat during the verses.... is pretty much drumless. You know: the kind of style Alc attempts but fails 99.9% of the time.
Either way, tell ya boy I've nearly crashed the whip a couple times bumping that shyt. and I'm a great driver.
receipts?
How you go 5 years without listening to SC? I can't go a day without listening to One and Malcolm/Ghost Deine at least
