Ghostface Killah Performs Live On Jimmy Kimmel, Blessedly Free Of Autotune
It's like I've died and woken up in heaven. Airy organ, shimmery space-dust chimes, the gentle plinklings of harp strings and… Ghostface Killah! See, despite it's impeccable title and a totally Ozsome cover, my favorite rapper's latest album, Ghostdini: The Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City is not one of his best, marred as it is by oversheened production and a gross excess of autotune. So how good it was to see him perform the single "Baby" on Jimmy Kimmel last night, accompanied by a live band with a goofy-looking percussionist doing a silly dance and Raheem DeVaughn singing the chorus without the detriment of the computerized voice-modulation effect. (It is a nice, sunny love song, isn't it, with it's nod to Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely?") And that harp! Someone tell Joanna Newsom: Ghostface wants to tap that.
Joanna Newsome is really good.
That is all.
Someone tell Ghostface: He'll be getting sloppy seconds.
(And yes, her music is really good.)
This is the death of Autotune. Moment of silence.
I disagree that it's "not one of his best". It's actually my favorite Ghost solo album since Fishscale and maybe my favorite Wu/Wu member album in that time period as well. It's a departure (but not as huge of one as some are making it out to be) but I think it really works. The autotune on the guest R & B singers is appropriate and tasteful and the production style is appropriate for the material. It's basically him making a contemporary R & B album in his style and I love it. I find myself wanting to listen to it more often than Only Built for Cuban Linx pt. 2. I don't always wanna listen to grimey beats and grisly crime narratives. Maybe I'm a pussy.