Ghostface Killah - GhostDeini The Great Review

Not a greatest-hits set for casual fans, and not quite a rarities set for the diehards who don't quite snap up every leaked track -- it wouldn't be accurately titled Even More Fish, either -- GhostDeini the Great is somewhere between all of these designations. Def Jam's third consecutive December Ghostface release, the disc mixes it up between album cuts from Ironman and Supreme Clientele ("Apollo Kids," "All That I Got Is You," "Cherchez LaGhost," "Mighty Healthy"), remixes (most contain alternate guest verses), and previously unreleased material (none of which is great shakes, though "Ghostface Xmas" adds a little seasonal value). Fans won't be thrilled doubling up on tracks they already have, but the set is definitely more for them than for those who know little beyond the classics. [Some copies came with a bonus DVD containing live and behind-the-scenes footage of Ghostface on tour.]...full text ’Tis the season for holiday hits packages that promise much yet deliver little. Although the title of this slapdash Ghostface Killah CD/DVD package might lead you to think it’s a collection of the Wu-Tang Clan lyrical swordsman’s best work, it’s actually just a major-label version of a mixtape with an assortment of remixes and reworks. The great joints (like the anthemic Just Blaze retouch of The Champ) are outnumbered by the mediocre, and a couple of new tracks are thrown in for added buying incentive....full text It bears mentioning at the outset that Ghostdeini the Great, the rarities and greatest hits compilation from Ghostface Killah, is unnecessary and unasked for. The album, a collection of deep cuts, undisputed classics, and lame remixes, with one unreleased track and a tossed off holiday jingle thrown in to provide currency, will do little to distract diehards who continue to put the forever delayed Ghostface–MF Doom collaboration Swift and Changeable as well as Raekwon's decade-in-the-making Only Built 4 Cuban Linx II, in which Ghostface will likely have as important a role as he did in the original, at the top of their wishlists. But in a December unusually barren of high-profile rap releases, 60 minutes of Ghostface Killah is hardly something to complain about. Seriously, a rap fan's loved one could do much worse when it comes to stuffing stockings with hip-hop albums.

Another benefit to the release of Ghostdeini is that the album gives us a chance to consider the career of the rapper best known for wildly colored wallabee shoes, mush-mouthed lyrical majesty, and savvy 7-11 cost benefits analyses. From the blastoff of Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), initiated by a Ghostface verse that rhymed "elephant tusk" with "Egyptian musk" and referenced Richard Nixon, the P.L.O., and Waco, Texas, to the cinematic coke-rap of 2006's Fishscale, Ghostface Killah has elevated the Wu ethos of verbal warfare to heights of beautiful opacity. Indeed, the aesthetic tenets of RZA's Wu-Tang ideology—kung-fu dialogue, five-percenter mysticism, harsh production techniques—fit least comfortably with Ghostface, whose solo output has tended more toward lush samples of '70s soul and kaleidoscopic, unorthodox lyric sheets. More than any of the Wu-Tang's nine other heads, Ghostface has been most successful when striking out on his own, and though Method Man may have been the group's marquee star at the outset, it is Ghostface who has by far had the strongest, most consistent solo career. One could even make the case, amazingly, that no other New York rapper excluding Jay-Z has had a better decade than him....full text