Album: Fishscale
Release Date: March 28, 2006
Producers: DOOM, Pete Rock, J Dilla, etc.
Review: For some reason, when it comes to Ghostface Killah, it always comes back to Fishscale for me. By the time it came out, I'd seen Wu-Tang live twice (the second time they actually premiered the video for the Fishscale single "Back Like That" before the show) and had a handful of Wu albums in my library...but I bought it on a weekly trip to the record store near my college and it became a staple of my budding Wu-Tang section almost immediately.
At the time of this writing, Fishscale and its quick sequel More Fish are also the midway point in Ghostface's solo career - the fifth and sixth releases of his 11-album catalog. I think that halfway point makes itself clear musically, too. The soul-heavy sounds from Ironman and fast delivery of Supreme Clientele are here, but Fishscale also foreshadows some of the storytelling elements Ghost uses most heavily on his recent comic book concept albums, 2013's 12 Reasons to Die and 2014's 36 Seasons. After a quick diss-filled intro from our old friend Clyde Smith (Raekwon voice-disguised), the album drops a four-song atom bomb on us with "Shakey Dog," "Kilo," "The Champ" and "9 Milli Bros."
"Shakey Dog" is a three-minute single verse telling the story of Ghost and his boy Frank pulling a robbery in the projects, from the stakeout to facing gunfire and a pitbull in the target apartment. It's fast and furious but never loses control. It's followed up by "Kilo" featuring Raekwon. If history has proven one thing, it's that Raekwon and Ghostface go together like rum and Coke. In my mind they're more a team than anyone else in the Wu (except maybe GZA, RZA and ODB), despite Ghost and Rae being MIA on a couple of each other's albums. It's a little slower and bouncier than "Shakey Dog" or the next track, "The Champ," but it's a good breather between the two.
Then there's "The Champ." Due to sample clearance issues, they couldn't use dialogue from the Rocky films throughout this track but a leaked early copy floats around that has them. However, the stand-in actors they got do the job just fine on this Just Blaze-produced track that is easily my personal favorite on the album. It sounds like a boxer's walk-out track, it uses an image of Ghost's lyrics being equivalent to a heavyweight champion's boxing, and a friend of mine asked me for warm-up music for her own Muay Thai fights and this is the one she still uses out of all the tracks I sent her. It's crazy aggressive in the best of ways. Check out some of the Muhammad Ali-worthy combos here:
"Trailblazer stay ballin' with vengeance, my arts is crafty
Darts, while y'all stuck on Laffy Taffy
Wonderin' 'How did y'all niggas get past me?
I been doin' this before Nas dropped the 'Nasty''
My Wallys I did 'em up, them bricks I sent 'em up
My rhymes y'all bit 'em up, for that now stick 'em up
10-4 good buddy, Tone got his money up
Worth millions, still bag your bitch lookin' bummy what
Y'all starin' at the angel of death
Liar liar pants on fire, you're burnin' up like David Koresh."
Ghost is saying he doesn't get how bullshit rap like Laffy Taffy (and later, the guys who bit (stole) his rhymes) gets constant airplay, fame, money and recognition while a vet like him, who's been dropping legendary verses since Nas was still known as Nasty Nas, still fights for it every day. Another "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" part is in the third verse, where Ghost fits in every solo album he's had a major stake in since he started: "Back East I'm an MC king / since Cuban, Pretty Tone, Ironman, Bulletproof and Supreme" - namedropping Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... and Ghost's own Pretty Toney Album, Ironman, Bulletproof Wallets and Supreme Clientele. It sounds amazing.
"9 Milli Bros." follows, and features production by MF Doom and verses by every single member of the Wu-Tang Clan - including Cappadonna and Ol' Dirty Bastard, the latter dead over a year - in just four minutes. It's as perfect casting for me as if I wrote a hip-hop fan fiction. No surprise, everyone does their thing and brings their best game. It may be the first time all 10 Wu-generals featured on a track since 1997's "Triumph," since ODB wasn't able to contribute to the "full group" songs "Protect Ya Neck (The Jump Off)" or "Uzi (Pinky Ring)." Also, if you're wondering why Inspectah Deck sounds so unlike himself here, Rap Genius claims it's because he mentioned in interviews around the time of this release that he'd been in the studio while getting over some illness.
After those four insane tracks, it's good that the next few tracks slow it down for a minute so we can breathe. Raekwon returns for "R.A.G.U." and Ghost gets told off by a small child in "Bad Mouth Kid (Skit)" before J Dilla produces "Whip You with a Strap." Then there's the album's big single "Back Like That," featuring Ne-Yo. Oddly enough, "Back Like That" is the most catchy but my least favorite song on the album. It consistently excuses the narrators' cheating on their girls while condemning the girls for doing the same thing right back. I understand that the track tries to make it apples and oranges by spinning it like "I made a couple mistakes, but you revenge-fucked a guy who you know I hate," but to me it's close enough to splitting hairs that I don't love it. You cheated on her; why be surprised that she returns the favor when she finds out? It's still a good song musically and lyrically, but the message throws me.
The album switches gears at its running time's halfway point. Immediately after "Back Like That" is "Be Easy," the first song to feature a member of Ghostface's found talent The Theodore Unit (unless you count "9 Milli Bros." since Cappadonna was technically in Theodore Unit as well). Theodore Unit are on the next four tracks in a row: "Be Easy," "Clipse of Doom," "Jellyfish" and "Dogs of War." "Be Easy" is live and boisterous with a catchy hook and guest stars Trife da God and production from Pete Rock. "Clipse of Doom" also features Trife, with production by MF Doom - both also appear on "Jellyfish" and are joined by Cappadonna and Theodore Unit's Shawn Wigs. Finally, "Dogs of War" is another Pete Rock production with Raekwon, Trife, Cappadonna and Sun God.
The final collaboration with DOOM on this album is "Underwater," which (aside from "Jellyfish") sounds the most typical of his music. It's pretty awesome to hear Ghostface rapping over DOOM's beats, even though all four of his tracks are recycled from older beats. I mentioned previously that DOOM's first involvement with the Wu was his guest verse on "Biochemical Equation" on Think Differently Music in October of 2005, but I think his Adult Swim project DangerDoom came out a few months before then and it did feature one verse from Ghostface. Either way, it's good to hear the two work together again so well. DOOM next produced two tracks on More Fish, brought both Raekwon and Ghostface to guest star on his 2009 album Born Like This and released the first song from DOOM and Ghost's long-rumored collaboration project DOOMStarks, "Victory Laps," in 2012. DOOMStarks has had more buzz this month in a Reddit AMA with Ghostface, in which a fan asked him about the project and he simply responded that it's coming out in 2015.
The album ends with the slow burner "Momma" and a bonus track of GFK, Biggie and Raekwon - "Three Bricks." Anyone scratching their heads over how The Notorious B.I.G. got on a record with Ghost and Rae a decade after his death may be a little disappointed: Biggie's verse is taken from his track "Niggas Bleed" off his 1997 release Life After Death. Despite the known problems Method Man expressed with the direction P. Diddy took with Tical 0, he co-produces "Three Bricks."
Legacy: The response to Fishscale was overwhelming. Critics lauded it as Ghostface Killah's best release since the near-perfect Supreme Clientele and the sheer amount of great songs is impossible to ignore. I mentioned earlier it works as a great midway point in Ghost's career between 1993 and 2014 by mixing his first solo efforts with his latest. It also kicks off a writing spree in which Ghostface released three studio albums in 18 months and sits pretty in the middle of some underrated gems in the Map of Shaolin - Think Differently and Grandmasters we already discussed, but the Wu are about to bring it strong again with Inspectah Deck's The Resident Patient, Masta Killa's Made in Brooklyn and 4:21: The Day After, which is Method Man's bounce-back from Tical 0. While 2005/2006 didn't quite garner the financial and critical success of the '94 to '96 era of Wu-Tang, it's a damn enjoyable part of their history I'm excited to get into - and you should be too. Now go listen to "The Champ" to pump yourself up.
Recommended Tracks: The Champ, 9 Milli Bros., Be Easy.
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