Album: Bulletproof Wallets
Release Date: November 13, 2001
Producers: RZA ("Maxine," "Flowers," "Walking through the Darkness," "Jealousy"), The Alchemist (as Al Chemist) ("The Forest," "The Juks," "Street Chemistry"), Mathematics ("Theodore," "Strawberry"), et al.
Review: Ghostface's third album is Bulletproof Wallets. There's so much to say about it I'm going to skip the preamble and get down to business.
For starters, the personnel is very intriguing. This is the first album to feature Ghostface's spin-off group The Theodore Unit (which includes Ghostface, Trife, Twiz, Shawn Wigs, Solomon Childs and Cappadonna). The Theodore Unit is similar to Raekwon's American Cream Team, being led by one Wu general and featuring several hand-picked talents - Twiz was even in both groups. On Bulletproof Wallets, Trife and Twiz appear, though more members of the group followed on subsequent Ghost records - keep them in mind, as Ghost's 2006 release More Fish includes them on the majority of tracks. Producer mainstays RZA and Mathematics provide close to half the album together, and this is also the first appearance in the Wu catalog of The Alchemist (here credited as Al Chemist), who would go on to produce tracks on Raekwon's Cuban Linx 2 and Shaolin vs. Wu-Tang as well as become Eminem's official DJ five years later. Speaking of Raekwon, The Chef appears on four tracks ("Maxine," "Flowers," "Never Be the Same Again" and "The Hilton"). Other Wu appearances include Method Man, an interlude/hook by RZA and GZA ("Strawberry") and Wu affiliates Killa Sin, Prodigal Sunn and Tekitha.
Avid fans may recognize the track name "Walking through the Darkness" from RZA's Ghost Dog soundtrack. On that release, it was performed solo by Tekitha, singing wonderfully over Bobby Womack's "Across 110th Street" instrumental. Here, Ghost has two verses, differentiating it from the original. This is also one of the most prominent early example of Ghost performing amid sung R&B hooks (on his own records that is), on tracks like "Never Be the Same Again" and "Ghost Showers." This style came to fruition most prominently on Ghost's 2009 album Ghostdini: Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City, which features R&B vocals on almost every track.
So how does the album fare? RZA kicks it off right with phat beats on "Maxine" and "Flowers" and live verses by Ghost, Rae, Method Man and Superb. I was never an R&B fan but I appreciate Carl Thomas's hook on "Never Be the Same Again," The sped-up sample of Blood Sweat & Tears' "40,000 Headsmen" intro on "Theodore" is fantastic, making for a unique music box-led beat by Mathematics that features the best lyrics so far on the record. Ghost runs out of the gate with
"Stark edition rock Christians
The crystallized rock got the big jewelry dealers on a mission
With a slick taste of lace, I done smacked New York City
The 450 went poppin' when he tried to dip me
Balled out in bingo halls, reported skied out in jury duty
Judge Judy, big groupie bitch blew me, beigin' rush Kufi
Blast the last uzi, ship me to Africa right? I share rubies."
Meanwhile, Trife makes a case for himself on the same song: "Whatever y'all put up I double that / Stapleton is where I hustle at, 2-12 is where I bubble at / Yeah I'm talkin' moneywise, you funny guys / I'm quick to yolk you up like an egg cooked sunny-side."
Mathematics kills it again on "Strawberry," which also showcases the only thing about Ghost I'm not crazy about: he's got so many explicit verses about sex that they tend to stand out even among his most brilliant albums. I'm no stranger to sex in lyrics, stories and movies, but between the squishing sound effects and rhymes about ejaculation, sometimes it seems like too much.
Fortunately the second half of the album stays mostly solid throughout. Ghost's lyrics fare better on the surreal "The Forest" than "Strawberry." It's themed around cartoon characters in adult situations and based on a lovely sample by The Imaginations. "The Juks" is an engaging track about gambling that never wears out its welcome. As mentioned earlier, "Walking through the Darkness" is a winner, just like the following proper track "The Hilton" - although the latter is thrown off pace a bit since it's bookended by two 60-second musical interludes. "Interlude" itself gets your blood pumping just as it cuts out, although it does a good job of foreshadowing the equal parts modern and retro sound that continued on Fishscale. The R&B-centered "Love Session" feels a bit long before the closer "Street Chemistry," but on the whole it's a satisfying album.
Legacy: At just 46 minutes, with five of its 16 tracks clocking in under two minutes each, Bulletproof Wallets is a concise and listenable album that mixes Ghost's classic sound (which evokes RZA's most syrupy funk beats) with his first project as a group leader (of the Theodore Unit). Due to sample clearance issues, several tracks failed to appear on the album, which is likely the chief cause for Wallets' brevity. This is also Ghost's last album for Epic, signing next to Def Jam, and rumors (and Wikipedia) have it that Ghost's reasoning for leaving Epic is tied to their failure to assist him in obtaining rights to the samples he used on the missing tracks. Besides being a bit less airtight than Supreme Clientele and Ironman, Bulletproof Wallets is proof that Ghost can make a hat trick for great albums, rendering him as reliable a talent as Inspectah Deck or Raekwon's more recent career.
Recommended Tracks: Maxine, Theodore, The Forest.
No comments:
Post a Comment