Ghostface Killah raps for Rihanna

Ghostface Killah has recorded a song expressing support for Rihanna. Click here to listen to "Message from Ghostface."


Photo credit: Def Jam Records, Scott Schafer

Prince and Target

Looks like The Purple One digs the government's recovery plan.

Instead of releasing his upcoming albums through a big time label and packaging them individually in record shops, Prince will bundle his two new albums, LOtUSFLO3R and MPLSoUND, and his protege Bria Valente's Elixer, in one package for $11.98 starting March 29 exclusively at Target. That's a real bargain. Admit it, even though you don't really care about Valente's record, it's pretty sweet to pick up two new Prince records for about twelve bucks. And if Elixer turns out to be good - or even a'right - then that's just a lucky boon. Prince is another in a line of artists, including AC/DC, The Eagles, and Guns n' Roses who have exclusively released records via massive retailers such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy. These retailers have been hit or miss with exclusive deals lately. AC/DC sold more than a million units while GNR has sold barely over 500,000.

[Note: Rolling Stone Magazine says the price will be $11.99. Billboard says $11.98. Penny's is a big deal, no?]

Small props.

Photo credit: Theo Wargo/WireImage

Top Ten Records of 2008

1. Lil Wayne - Tha Carter III
2. My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges
3. Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Part One (4th World War)
4. Kings of Leon - Only By The Night
5. Porter Batiste Stoltz - MOODOO
6. Metallica - Death Magnetic
7. Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple

And a few reissues...
8. Dennis Wilson - Pacific Ocean Blue
9. Otis Redding - Otis Blue
10. Beck - Odelay


Photo credit: Nunez/WireImage

Two "new" Pearl Jam records?

Pearl Jam is back in the studio with producer Brendan O'Brien for the first time in 11 years for their ninth studio album. They last collaborated on 1998's Yield. Bassist Jeff Ament says that vocalist Eddie Vedder just "keeps getting better." 2009 looks like it will be a busy year for Pearl Jam. On March 24, their debut album and grunge cornerstone Ten will be rereleased with brand new mastering and mixing, courtesy, of course, of one Mr. O'Brien. Here is a remixed Porch and fan fave B-side Brother.

Photo credit: Spark St. Jude

D'Angelo is coming back! For real!

D'Angelo is expected to collaborate with none other than Prince on James River, his follow-up to 2000's bongepic, sultryfunk suite, Voodoo. He has already teamed with Raphael Saadiq (who was the axeman behind "Untitled [How Does It Feel?]), Cee-Lo from Gnarls Barkley, and trumpet/cornetist Roy Hargrove. D will also tour Europe and the U.S. in support of the album, which is slated to be released this summer. All we need is Dr. Dre's The Detox and we're golden.


Photo credit: Phil Bonyata

Selected Retrospective: Ghostface Killah | Fishscale

"You ain't been hungry since Supreme Clientele," a raspy voice imitating Mickey the trainer from Rocky tells Ghostface Killah. He's right. Ghostface's albums between Supreme and this his fifth album were often uninspired and lacking his fevered need to get on the mic. Fishscale, produced by MF DOOM, Pete Rock, J Dilla, among others, isn't a return to form. It greatly surpasses his previous best effort and firmly establishes him as one of the best rappers alive.

Proof isn't hard to come by. Dig "Shakey Dog," the first track off the album. Lyrically, it's a first-person account of a drug heist gone terribly wrong. The level of detail in the lyrics ("Back seat with my leg all stiff...tartar sauce on S Dot kicks") is worthy of the strongest crime fiction. Rapnoir, anybody? But the tune's structure is what freaks me out. Ghostface raps for 64 straight bars without pausing for a hook or chorus. Given that the standard hip-hop verse is 16 bars long, this is extraordinary. Absurd thoughts crossed my mind listening to the narrative: Does Ghostface breathe? If so, has he learned circular breathing? Is it possible this is a freestyle, no pen-and-pad, rap? Just when those thoughts began to interfere with paying attention to the song, something uncommon happened with the horns and the loping bassline -- tonal modulation. "Wait," you say, "he raps for 64 bars nonstop and the song changes chords too?" Yeah, that's right, homie. 12 bars in the A sections and four bars in the B sections. That's how Ghostface rolls, though the structure is loosened up the first time around. For good reason, it took me quite a while to get to track two. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that "Shakey Dog" bests "Nutmeg" and "Run" as far as prime Ghostface Killah jams go.

Fishscale, slang for uncut cocaine, mostly focuses on coke slanging, or "pyrex scholars," as Ghost says. "Kilo" introduces the metric system while Ghost and Raekwon cook coke, "Big Girl" cautions ladies to lay off the nose candy, and "Crack Spot" spotlights the dangers of paranoia. When Ghost's next album drops, I hope he's as hungry as he is here.



NOTE: In "Whip You With A Strap" Ghostface samples a J Dilla song off of Donuts, the last album Dilla cut while alive. The song he sampled is called "One for Ghost." Glad Dilla was keeping an eye out.

Selected Retrospective: Ghostface Killah | Supreme Clientele

Four years after Ironman and a stint at Riker's Island, Ghostface Killah proclaims on Supreme Clientele that he doesn't mean to harm anybody, but that it happens when he encounters wack MCs. At first glance, this seems like another prideful boast in the hip-hop "I'm-the-best-and-you're-wack" continuum. Yet after digging the whole record, it becomes apparent that far from boasting, Ghostface was stating his mission.

The first five songs are about as unsurpassable as Ghostface gets, culminating with the unforgiving horns n' strings of "Apollo Kids." It's hard to understand how this was only his second record. True, he collaborated with some of his Wu brethren before, but that can't account for Ghostface going form solid to outstanding, can it? On "Nutmeg," Ghostface raps,

Scientific, my hand kissed it
robotic, let's think optimistic
you probably missed it
watch my dolly dick it
scotty watty cop it to me
big microphone hippie
hit Poughkeepsie crispy chicken verbs
throw up a stone richie.

Abstract, to say the least, but hard-hitting and unrelenting in its rhythmic pulse. In "One," the rhyme scheme for more than half of his second verse is based on the sound "ash" and its variations. He moves the accents of the rhyming words from the end to the beginning of lines, and sometimes the rhymes are only internal. Add his bewildering, spontaneous reversal of "supercalifragalisticexpialidocious" in "Buck 50," and it's all too clear that nobody else raps like this or would know how to. Wack MCs beware.



NOTE: The Bootsies for Supreme Clientele also apply to Ironman.