Album: Twelve Reasons to Die
Producer: Adrian Younge
Release Date: April 16, 2013 (The Brown Tape released April 23, 2013)
Note: This album was released alongside a short comic book series that helped tell the story, similar to the included comic in Ghost's subsequent release 36 Seasons. I couldn't get my hands on a copy of the comic before this review; my apologies. However, a week after Twelve Reasons to Die's release, they released a musically alternate version of the album, Twelve Reasons to Die: The Brown Tape, which I'll cover briefly at the end of this entry. Thanks for your support!
Review: Ghostface Killah has always been the type of rapper to tell a story, from his award-winning verse on Wu-Tang's "Impossible" to the present day. On 2013's Twelve Reasons to Die, he takes it a step further by enlisting composer/producer Adrian Younge to serve as the musical counterpart to his first official concept album. Ghost has had themed albums before (Ghostdini is almost entirely R&B-based rap), but this is the first album to stick with one story from start to finish. Adrian Younge has called the album "the score to a vintage Italian horror film," which sounds pretty accurate in my opinion.
The story that Twelve Reasons tells is about Tony Starks (Ghostface) and the DeLuca mob family. I'll fill in the story as we go along. The album opens with "Beware of the Stare," a funk overture of what's to come. It introduces Tony and features a foreboding hook about his impending murder. Big props to Adrian Younge for writing this track for Ghost to rap over; the fusion of dynamic prog-rock time signatures, an old-school bassline, Wu-Tang slang, a small Shakespearean women's chorus and soul keyboards are an amazing way to kick off this album. When I first bought it, I told one of my boys it was Ghost's most musical album at the time, and I stand by that. He's released others since, but that's another story for another day.
On "Rise of the Black Suits" we look back at Tony's early days over jazz drums and '70s church keyboards supporting a simple piano progression that ascends and descends a half a scale on the seventh and eighth beats. At times, when the other piano bit kicks in (three chords), it sounds like a solid candidate for the first Broken Bells album. Tony worked as an underling for the DeLuca clan, rising through the ranks until, in his words, "Tryin' to make me a made man, they fucked up the game plan / I blacked out on them and started my own clan." Virtually all of the album is story in rhyme, and it almost always serves both with a perfect balance. The song ends with Ghost telling us the DeLucas claimed to support his success but would've started a war with him if they weren't too chickenshit.
Masta Killa guests on "I Declare War" (on which Tony decides - you guessed it - to declare war on the DeLucas) as a long-time friend and member of Tony's mob. MK references "Wu-Gambinos" from Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... to depict how tight their family is ("It's non-stop hustle and flow of their casino, RZA Tarantino / It's Wu-Gambino for life, you know how we go"). RZA pads things out with a narrated outro that reads like an intro text box for a comic book, which I hope is intentional. "Born into a world with violence, death and destruction surrounding him at every turn, Tony Starks took control of his own destiny and aspired to become one of the foremost leaders of the criminal underworld..."
It leads directly into "Blood on the Cobblestones," which has some similar instrumentation that Younge likely utilized to show how fast it's on once Tony's made the decision to go to war. It's quicker than any track so far and utilizes turntables to promote a sense of urgency. U-God and Inspectah Deck guest here, fighting on Tony's side, and each have some really entertaining rhymes. U-God opens his verse with "How you prepare for war? Grab your guns and hardware / Never close your eyes in the barber chair," alluding to mobster movies where someone gets killed sitting at the barber's. INS uses his trademark bouncing flow to outline his own plan for taking down their rivals: "Greet 'em with open arms, beat 'em with no regards / Feed 'em .223's freeze 'em, leave 'em with no resolve."
"The Center of Attraction" slows it back down with Tony meeting a girl named Logan who Cappadonna warns is a DeLuca spy. It starts with the female singers from "Beware of the Stare" before Tony talks about himself and Logan being like peanut butter and jelly - made to go together. Cap tries to open his eyes, responding with "She's not your peanut butter! More like a fuckin' nutcase," which I think is hysterical. I've listened to it 20 times and I laugh every time I hear it. But I'm not laughing at Cappadonna; he's just delivering a great response to Tony's metaphor in a way that sounds funny to me. Musically, it's all ride cymbals and hitting the edge of the snare drum with strings and slow, reverberated keys. Very mysterious, very old soul.
Tony doubles down in his trust for Logan at the end, as well as on "Enemies All around Me." He says his gang doubts him now, and that his boys tell him "Bitches are sneaky, trifling and not to be trusted / A weak link in the team and the chain will get busted," but he decides "That's my lady, she would never backstab or double-cross me." William Hart provides the hook here, which he sings some of in falsetto, reminding me of Handsome Boy Modeling School. Same drumbeat as "The Center of Attraction," cleverly following up since this is Tony's internal monologue responding to Cappadonna's concerns. Then comes "An Unexpected Call (The Set Up)," in which Logan calls Tony to come to her house and, on his arrival, is ambushed by DeLuca gangsters and killed. They melt him in a pot of hot vinyl and one of his boys (Inspectah Deck) tells the rest of the family to look for Logan so he can get some answers.
Around the midway point on the album, on "The Rise of the Ghostface Killah," Tony Starks is dead but his spirit is preserved into 12 vinyl records pressed from the vat that the DeLucas lowered him into. Whenever one of the records is played, shit happens - namely, the Ghostface Killah seeks revenge. This may be the point of the story where some check out, but it's a great record even if you're not a fan of the comic book/grindhouse/horror aspect. I'll be honest, the story takes a back seat for much of the rest of the album, with only occasional references to characters or Ghost's new immortal status. Instead it leaves room to breathe and have fun with its rappers spitting verses about revenge and murder. Back to "The Rise of..." With an almost Portishead quality to the music, Ghost recaps the last few tracks and outlines some gruesome murder scenes ("Colombian neckties from a black gambino / Bodies get dumped in the black El Camino" and "Hogtie the capo all up, behead the driver / Left the bitch in the back with no tongue as the survivor"). Tremolo guitar and a turntable sampling ODB's classic "Ghost - face - killahhhhhhhhh" are used as well.
"The Catastrophe (Revenge is Sweet)" keeps that theme going as well, with guest spots by Killa Sin and Masta Killa. The murder spree continues on..."Murder Spree," which is not to be confused with "Killin' Spree" by Defari. "Murder Spree" is an all-out posse cut with seven verses and no hook. Mostly eight bars apiece, each emcee is only on for 20 seconds at a time. Inspectah Deck, Masta Killa, U-God, Killa Sin and Ghost all rap about ways to kill people, with Ghost and MK each getting two verses. Deck and U-God get grisly with dismemberment: Deck rocks "Dahmer style, cut up and stuffed in the fridge / And maybe washed up ashore and found under the bridge," and then U-God spits "First things first, I chop your head to your fingertips / Butcher knife your torso, chop up your ligaments / Make sure it's legitimate, conceal all my fingerprints / Chop chop your body up then get rid of it."
"Murder Spree" and "The Sure Shot" both bring an acid-rock feel to them, the instruments hyped and popping. "The Sure Shot" especially has fast jazz drums with the ride cymbal and snare alternating pure energy. Ghost spits rhymes faster than he has in years,..for the first 90 seconds. Then it slows up and gets phat again, Ghostface seems to have hit a turning point - his revenge is complete, catching stray DeLucas and killing them, but what does he do now? He doesn't know whether or not to kill Logan for her betrayal, run his business or let his partners do it and so on. The album ends with a title track that features a brief RZA epilogue voiceover, promising that Ghost's story lived on for generations and served as a warning not to double-cross a man like Tony Starks. It also leaves the door wide open for a sequel, which was released in July 2015.
The Brown Tape Factor: Just one week following the release of Twelve Reasons to Die, an alternate version of the album was released, called Twelve Reasons to Die: The Brown Tape. It's hard to define it, because the closest description is a remix album but that's being really unfair. The Brown Tape is more like a musically-alternate version of Twelve Reasons, taking all the final master tracks of vocals and laying them over completely different music, this time by Apollo Brown. It's like a movie remake more than anything. Vinyl pops persist throughout the album, but the live soul band feel of Twelve Reasons is replaced - sometimes with more obviously looped and sampled material, other times with darker instruments. "Rise of the Black Suits" has picked blues guitar while "I Declare War" is built on a loop that sounds like a latter-day track by one of RZA's disciples. "Blood on the Cobblestones" utilizes a fast jazz piano, and "The Center of Attraction" uses a slow descending piano that's too beautiful to describe; "Murder Spree" sounds like a genuine Wu-beat as well. Even "The Sure Shot," which was straightforward acid-rock on the first release, is replaced with pure 1970s blaxploitation film funk. It's a pretty great alternate take on the album and I can't imagine owning one version without the other. The feeling listening to each is like watching an old film in black and white then watching it in color - it's hard to tell which is better but you'd hate not having both.
Legacy: Twelve Reasons to Die springboarded Ghostface's current concept album-based career. Since it was released just two years ago, he's put out a total of three: Twelve Reasons to Die, 36 Seasons and Twelve Reasons to Die II. Critics responded well to Twelve Reasons, mostly giving it between 7 and 10. Tiny Mix Tapes gave it a 4.5/5, raving both about Younge's vintage American soul production and the sheer violent fun of the album. Considering the equally warm response his follow-up, 36 Seasons, would receive, Ghostface is giving new meaning to the question "How can hip-hop be dead if Wu-Tang is forever?"
Recommended Tracks: It's hard to listen to one piece of this story alone - it's like watching one scene from a movie - so do yourself a favor and just hear it from front to back.
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