Sound bite: “Fishscale”

Ghostface Killah “Fishscale” Def Jam
Records It’s bizarre and inscrutable, but certainly
overstuffed with more meticulously crafted rhymes and beats than
many rap artists lay their hands on in a career. The only real
problem is that, rather frequently, a track seems to have too many
valid ideas to form an integrated whole. Take “Kilo,”
for example ““ instead of opting for some blaxploitation
sample to boost Ghostface’s stories of coke dealing, the
listener is handed a retro-funk cut-and-paste built out of a
chugging, wah-wah foundation that lasts half as long as it should.
It may be a metaphor for Ghostface’s style, but although
it’s convincing music, it’s not a convincing sound.
Then there’s “Be Easy,” the album’s first
single and the home of territorial braggadocio so clever that
whoever it’s directed at might be more amused than offended.
And, truly, a dance club vibe this raw makes perfect sense in light
of taunts such as, “You be fronting like you got a bunch of
chicks, uh / You be at home, nigga, beating your dick, uh /
I’m in the club with the chipped-up wrist, uh / You at the
bar, whoadie, drinkin’ my piss, uh.” Cerebrally, it
works, but the end result simply sounds more empty than hard. This
is an album of ideas, and when Ghostface tells stories or paints
pictures with his trademark staccato bursts on top of a beat that
sounds as good as its inspiration, the results are amazing. In
“Beauty Jackson,” his ode to a one-time object of his
infatuation at a bus stop, a violin interjects a double-time soul
sample, which dissipates like her cigarette smoke working its way
up toward a street light. “Underwater” is lent
something surreal ““ fitting for a hookless
stream-of-consciousness rap about meeting mermaids and djinns
somewhere in the ocean ““ by the mystified female vocals and
specter of a tour guide represented by the flute sample. With more
saliently criminal intent than the other tracks, “Clipse of
Doom” mesmerizes with a wall of relatively static sound. With
no distractions and a hyperfocused mind, the starkness of
Ghostface’s purported underworld exploits is that much more
gripping. “Fishscale” changes gears as often as it
matches ideas, which is to be expected considering the all-star
production team of MF Doom, Just Blaze, Pete Rock and J Dilla. One
of these switches can be heard on the album’s
R&B/Motown-influenced tracks, like the second single
“Back Like That” and the sweet-nothing rap “Big
Girl.” Instead of using a few bars of sampling and virtuosic
rapping until exhausted of inspiration, these tracks feature intact
song structures that lend a more complete musicality to the album.
This is something of a departure from the grimy signature stamp of
the Wu-Tang Clan. “Back Like That” builds, instrument
by instrument, just the way a soul song would, and the chorus of
“Big Girl” soars on top of the pre-existing vocal
harmonies, melodies and chords that lazily ““ and rather
sweetly ““ progress from one to the next. Whether these are
soul songs with rap in lieu of melody or rap songs with overbearing
singers, and whether the rest of the album is too cluttered or
packed just right, we’re left with something that can only be
classified, heard and oriented in the world of Ghostface Killah.
“”mdash; Alex LaRue a;[email protected]