Day 0967 - Fishscale

Ghostface Killah “Fishscale” (2006)

It’s been a bit of a gap since Wu-tang have shown up on this list in any form.  I suspect Raewkon’s “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx” (which heavily featured Ghostface Killah) might have been the last.  In that time GK had released a few solo albums, an album with his rap collective Theodore Unit, guested on a bunch of other artist’s releases and had temporarily dropped the ‘Killah’ from his name.

This was hailed as one of GK’s best, most cohesive albums for a while and (without being that familiar with most of his work) I could get behind that.   As with many hip-hop albums of this era, it’s overlong, running 65 minutes or so.  It has 24 tracks but plenty of those are short skits or nice brief tracks below the 3-minute mark, so things don’t get stagnant.

The mix of producers doesn’t prevent the album coming across as a cohesive work, though I did prefer J Dilla’s tracks, especially the catchy, quirky “Whip You With a Strap”.  I believe J Dilla released some solo stuff too, so might need to check on that.  MF Doom’s “Underwater” is also enjoyably interesting and sonically feels like it lives up to its name.

There are some quite RZA-esque beats here.  That, mixed with the film dialogue samples ties it nicely into the Wu-niverse, even though it seems to throw in a lot more soul samples and horns and whatnot.  

Day 0962 - Be

Common “Be” (2005)

Following his success with “Like Water For Chocolate” (see day 913) Common really shook things up with his follow-up “Electric Circus”.  He moved away from his hip-hop sound, incorporating rock and psychedelic aspects.  That move was critically well-received, but the kudos wasn’t reflected in his album sales.

Common parted company with label MCA and was signed to Kanye West’s newly formed GOOD records.  Kanye was a fan of Common’s and the two got together with Common’s producer J Dilla (RIP) to produce “Be”.

The album almost feels like a modern “What’s Going On” (see day 208) and even samples Marvin Gaye on “Love is….”.   There is plenty of soul used in the backing tracks, and Common largely acts as a reporter of life growing up black in the US, particularly on tracks like “Be”, “The Corner” and “Real People”.  

The track “Testify” feels like it’s something similar but takes a turn as a is man set up and framed by his heartless wife.  Probably a theme Marvin Gaye would have got on board with as he seemed to play the victim following his divorce from Anna Gordy, which in turn led to him producing the album “Here My Dear” with the court ordering any royalties be paid to Gordy.

By contrast the track “Faithful” sees Common reflecting thoughtfully on the way he does and should treat women.

I probably preferred this to "Like Water for Chocolate".  Just the general overall sound and the slightly more 'conscious' lyrics appealed to me.