Posts tagged as Ghostface Killah
Songs About Tuberculosis and Death
With the terrifying new strain of "indestructible" tuberculosis discovered in India this week, it's a good time to revisit the music made about the deadly disease in the past. Like lots of terrifying things, tuberculosis has inspired some truly great music. The "T.B. Blues" that Texas blues singer Victoria Spivey sings above, for example. Like she says, it's no joke. But she also says that she wrote it, in 1927. According to Smithsonian Folkways, it was written by Lead Belly, and he recorded it in 1944. Hmm! READ MORE
XV's "Wichita" And Jimmy Webb's "Wichita Lineman" Throughout The Past 40 Years Of Musical History
Here is a nice black-and-white video for the song "Wichita" by the young rapper XV, who is from Wichita, Kansas. The song is good, though I wish XV had done a little more with the chorus. The star producer Just Blaze, who is most famous for his work with Jay-Z, constructed the beat for XV's song using samples of the classic pop standard "Wichita Lineman" as recorded by Johnny Harris and the Dells. READ MORE
Cee-Lo Featuring Wiz Khalifa, "Bright Lights Bigger City" Remix
Remember the wonderfulness of the typography treatment of the lyrics in the original video for Cee-lo's "Fuck You" last summer? It started a trend—Hype Williams used a similar, though more photosensitive-epileptic-seizure-inducing, effect in his video for Kanye West's "All of the Lights" last month. Now, the new video for a remix of another song from Cee-lo's Lady Killer album, "Bright Lights Bigger City," puts a new spin on the idea. I think it's great. And, God, I love that Billie-Jeanie bassline. I'm not sure how much the addition of Wiz Khalifa adds, though, other than the cache that comes from his recent no. 1 single, "Black and Yellow." His voice sounds fine, but, man I wish he'd try to do a little more with his words. ("Ain't a Laker, but I'm ballin'..."? Really?) READ MORE
What Do Raekwon, Kobe, Ghostface Killah And Jim Jones Think Of When They Think Of "Rock N' Roll"?
The great Wu-Tang Clan rapper Raekwon releases his next solo album next month. Shaolin Vs. Wu-Tang, it's called, the follow-up to 2009's terrific Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2. Some of the new music sounds good. The latest song to leak, "Rock n' Roll," which features Rae's frequent collaborator Ghostface Killah, the singer Kobe, and Jim Jones of the Diplomats, sounds less so, to my curmudgeonly autotune-averse ears. But it's interesting to look at which rock n' rollers get namechecked in the lyrics. Not necessarily ones you might expect. For instance, Raekwon's first shout goes out to Willie Nelson. READ MORE
Fake Ghostface Killah Lexicon Almost As Amazing As The Real Thing
"Ghostface: But anyway bein that Imma 10304 nigga to the heart n was raised in Stapleton where basically niggas aint really up on global politics n shit of that types of evolutions nahmeans...what the god pretty sure niggas all over is thinkin is basically like...word....ayo how it feel to like run shit all over the map nahmean? Word yo cos niggas be holdin down they squares namsayin. N yo it's like every nigga motivation to accumulate more corners n shit so that they square get bigger n shit namsayin to the point where they holdin down major spots n they ain't even have to work that spot theyselves no more n put theyselves in harms way like that nahmean. They got little niggas puttin in they work while they sittin in the v.i.p. sections up at the Marquee or Nobu wit they broads n shit namsayin. But they still able to rock they fly gears n buy they moms new stoves n fridges n shit nahmean. READ MORE
Ghostface Killah, "In Tha Park"
So you know I had to run right out to the record store click "buy" at iTunes and get the new Ghostface Killah album this morning. (The basketball-sized "W" tattoo I have on my back starts to itch if I wait too long after any new product hits the streets.) I've been listening to it since, and it sounds pretty great. Jumping out at me first is track 7, "In Tha Park," which was produced by Frank Dukes and features the Roots' Black Thought and a totally awesome guitar sample—all cranked-up and fuzzed-out, you could almost hear it fitting on a Sleigh Bells record or something. Looking at the liner notes in the record sleeve my handy digital booklet (sigh), I see that it's a sample of Johhny Thunder's "I'm Alive." Which blows my mind for a minute because I think it's this song. READ MORE
What's So Bad About Ghostface Killah's New Album Cover?
I mean, it's nothing as glorious as his last one, Ghostdini: Wizard of Poetry, but I don't think the cover to Ghostface Killah's new album, Apollo Kids, is as Pitchfork says, "truly unfortunate." In fact, I kind of like it. READ MORE
Bolivia's Evo Morales Cited For Biting Cuba's Style
Bolivian president Evo Morales has caused a stir in his country by adopting a slogan popularized by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in the 1950s. When Morales' had his army chant "Patria o muerte, veneceremo"-"Fatherland or death, we shall overcome!"-during a military exhibition yesterday, Bolivian conservatives bristled. I don't blame them. It's like Ghost said on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx..., Keep it real. Get your own shit, man. And be original!
Meth, Ghost And Rae, "Criminology 2.5"
I remember people saying, back when the recession started, one good thing that could maybe come out of it was it could save music from its dismal state. Not the music industry, which was already pretty much doomed whatever happened, but music itself. Because of the commonly held belief that bad times make for good music. I guess because of the famously fertile early '70s? That is probably my favorite musical era. But maybe that's because that's when I was born. Do people have a built-in preference for the music that was made around the time they were? Do the first sounds we hear, even before we're fully conscious of it, become the ones our tastes gravitate to? Pandora should do a study. Anyway, I was skeptical. And I guess I still am. It's always hard to see the relative quality (if it's even valid to assert such a thing) of current art without the benefit of a couple years' hindsight. But I'd offer the resurgence of the Wu-Tang Clan as evidence that something good did happen during the recession. It has taken me by surprise in a way that makes me very happy. Above, "Criminology 2.5," the first track from the Wu-Masacre album, coming March 30th from Method Man, Ghostface Killah and Raekwon the Chef. It's a remake of a 1995 song, but the guys sound as strong and as sharp as ever. They've maybe mellowed a bit with age, but not in a bad way. Here's the track list and production credits for the new album: READ MORE
