Ghostface aka Paisley Fontaine goes in on his style, vision and that other Wu-Tang Clan album.Chances are, an above average rapper will drop a solid album or two or three, some good, some not so good, and call it a career. When it comes to Ghostface Killah, the odds are a bit better. Dennis Coles, party member of that band of merry rappers calling themselves the Wu-Tang Clan, has dropped multiple classics (Ironman, Supreme Clientele, and don’t forget the guest starring role on Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…). Add to that exceptional albums like Fishscale and The Pretty Toney Album, and Tony Starks sports one of the strongest musical catalogs in Hip-Hop. Whether his latest venture achieves the renowned status of his early masterpieces is a matter of time. Don’t bet against him, though. While the Clan’s once impregnable armor has been nicked by infighting, lack of focus and at times plain subpar material, Ghost Deini has remained consistent enough to at times single handedly keep the Clan’s iron flag waving. Dropping heater after heater, whether it be his own solo work, via scene stealinf guest spots or sharing the mic with his Theodore Unit squad, Ghost never fails to get busy. Now with a lucky seventh album added to the discography, The Big Doe Rehab, we take a look back at some of Ghostface’s winning plays.AllHipHop.com: How did “Can It Be All So Simple” come together?Ghostface Killah: It was the beat, the Gladys Knight sample and sh*t. I don’t know, I just went in. I was writing to it one night, I think Rae laid down his [verse] first so I had to come behind him. Whatever I said on that verse, that’s how I was feeling. “I wanna be in the shade plus spotlight, getting my d*ck rubbed all night.” I just had a vision. I just saw myself living and just being happy on can it be all so simple sh*t. The struggle and just trying to get away from the struggle.
AllHipHop.com: Heads really felt that track, is that what led to you being so prominent on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…?Ghostface Killah: Yeah, you know cause me and Rae out of the whole team—a lot of us was in the street, though—but me and Rae could relate to a lot of…street sh*t. So that’s why when we did Cuban Linx it just blended so well. We from different projects but we could relate to the same sh*t. I was a fly ni**a, I like a lot of fly sh*t. He was a fly ni**a. All that, with the chemistry and the way ours thoughts went it was just real good. So that’s why Cuban Linx turned out to be how Cuban Linx was.AllHipHop.com: What about “Criminology”? Ghostface Killah: I was in San Francisco when I wrote that verse. RZA had played some beats [and I was like] play that sh*t. I don’t know if it was a tape or CD back at that time. I just wrote what I had to write to it and when it was time to do Cuban Linx we just used that. AllHipHop.com: What made y’all go so hard on the hard white rap when no one had been doing that much before?Ghostface Killah: We trendsetters man. We set trends and we do what we do. That was the year for it. All that f*ckin’ Scarface sh*t and all that other sh*t, we just felt like that, ya know? We being like three years into the game. We all came up off that coke and all that other sh*t. Brothers was still getting busy while we was still making records. Ni**as is still moving whatever we had to move on the side and still doing sh*t. We was in our prime, we was 25 years old. At that peak back in them days right there, it’s like you seeing a lot. B*tches and parties; we was always get fly ni**as so we had all that; leathers on, Wallys on, Lo, Tommy Hil. It was the perfect f*cking time. That’s just how me and Rae do, especially for those times. AllHipHop.com: Then Ironman comes with joints like “Fish,” that you still perform.Ghostface Killah: “Fish” and “Black Jesus,” and “260” was [some] of my favorites off the Ironman album. “Fish” always stood out. The beat was mad chunky. I like how Rae and Cappadonna had came off on it. I just like that joint. It was back to the Cuban Linx chains again, where we left off. It was more or less the beat more than anything. It’s just chunky. Ghostface Killah “Fish”
AllHipHop.com: Now before Supreme Clientele, you dropped a similar style with “Cobra Clutch”.Ghostface Killah “Cobra Clutch”
Ghostface Killah: “Cobra Clutch” was abstract, an abstract joint. People get me twisted and sh*t. See I created a style when I did “Nutmeg” and “One” and all the other sh*t. I was in Africa and I was like, “Yo I’ma make a rhyme not meaning nothing.” Just put words together but what the sentence might mean, might not got nothing to do for nothing. I did it on “Nutmeg” and I the first verse on “One” and all the other sh*t. People started getting me confused. Like, “Damn I don’t know what he’s talking about.” But it wasn’t meant for you to know what I was talking about cause it was just a style that I created. So people f*cked around and got caught. Yeah, I don’t know what he talking about and this and that and a third. Rap to me is universal, you can play with the sh*t and whatever whatever. I just wanted to be the first n#### to make a rap that way. So when I did “Cobra Clutch” and “Nutmeg” and “One” and all that, if you look at the rest of my songs on a lot of other albums, it’s not like that, ya feel me?I don’t want ni**as to get it twisted cause I can get busy. That’s what “Cobra Clutch” was. It was something in those kind of chambers right there. I could have came and wrote ill darts but those days I was just f*cking with sh*t.Ghostface Killah “Nutmeg”
AllHipHop.com: What was up with “Careful (Click, Click)” off of The W?Ghostface Killah: Umm, it was alright. Them n##### killed it on “Careful”. I came in at the last minute trying to write whatever I could hurry up and write. I couldn’t really get my sh*t off on there. But RZA wanted me to do 4 to 8 bars on the sh*t. AllHipHop.com: Word? A lot of heads feel differently.Ghostface Killah: Yeah but I wasn’t satisfied with my own work. Even when you see it live, when it gets to my part I tell them to cut it. I don’t feel like singing that sh*t. AllHipHop.com: On “Careful” Donna says “big doe rehab” is that where your new album’s title comes from?Ghostface Killah: That’s where he said the big doe rehab, on that one? I thought it was something else. AllHipHop.com: He said “Stab you with the vocab, catch me at the big doe rehab.” Ghostface Killah: It’s not where it really comes from. But when it came to my attention one time that Donna said it but I don’t know, it’s just a coincidence. When the vision came to me of the Big Doe Rehab…maybe subconsciously that sh*t could have been in my head, ya feel me? I had half the songs before the Big Doe Rehab name. I just wanted to name that cause of the way my album cover is and the way I start the first skit off before the music comes in, it’s some really get money sh*t. It just all kind of coincided.
AllHipHop.com: Then “Theodore” on Bulletproof Wallets introduced your new team.Ghostface Killah: Yeah, I introduced Trife and them ni**as and that was it. I got a lot of songs tooken off of Bulletproof Wallets. I believe if I would have kept “The Sun” on it and I would have kept “The Watch” on it and a few other joints on there it would have been a classic. Up there with Supreme and Ironman. But based on samples and you couldn’t use certain sh*t, I had to deal with whatever I was dealing with.AllHipHop.com: Y’all went in, how did “The Watch” come together?Ghostface Killah f/ Raekwon “The Watch”
Ghostface Killah: I always wanted to use that [Barry White] sample. I think I might have been dusted when I was writing that sh*t. Caught a few bars and I just finished. I was out there in Florida with Rae. At first it was just my record that I was doing but then I wanted him to jump in on it with me. That’s why you hear him at the last little bit, playing the watch, the same watch. AllHipHop.com: Then you came with “Run” and the set off anticipation for your new Def Jam look.Ghostface Killah: “Run” was one of RZA’s beats. When I heard the beat is made just want to write something because it was so fast. As soon as the beat came up, “You I jumped from the 8th floor step,” before I even titled it “Run”. Cappa had a joint on his album called “Run” too, which to me was way more liver than the one I did. It was just one of those things. Saw Jadakiss out there in Miami, he wanted to do something. He’s an ill ni**a too [and I was] like] you know what let me see if you can go ahead and just smash this “Run” sh*t out right here, follow suit. It took him a while but he did what he had to do and we went in.
AllHipHop.com: Now Fishscale had a bunch of joints, but what’s up with “Shakey Dog”?Ghostface Killah: Again, that’s the beat, the beat made me do that. It’s the first lines you catch. I said something about starting uptown, somewhere around there, I forgot how the verse started. I winded up with my man and we all scheming and we trying to rob something uptown for some coke or whatever whatever whatever, he f*ck around and shoot a couple of ni**as in the spot, he get blasted. So that just led me to go to the to be continued. Ghostface Killah “Shakey Dog”
So when I got to the Big Doe Rehab, [“Shakey Dog Starring L#####”]. L##### she’s the niece of the ni**as that [were] killed in the spot and she a bad b*tch from out there, from the Medellin cartel out there where Noriega and them ni**as was getting his coke from and all that. She come get at the kid. A few bodies was found around my way and one of them ni**as was my man Frankie that she f*cked around and killed. L##### is part two of the “Shakey Dog.” AllHipHop.com: You ever seriously considered writing movie screenplays?Ghostface Killah: Yeah, yeah cause I write like I write movies. It’s all like a movie. Of course. My stories is like movies man, that’s how I like it. For people to see my vision.Ghostface Killah “Shakey Dog Starring L#####”
AllHipHop.com: Are you and MF DOOM still working on your joint album?Ghostface Killah: Not as of right now. He still got a bunch of songs that we recorded. So I guess after we catch more free time after I finish this project, the Cuban Linx II with Rae or we going to do the Shaolin Vs Wu-Tang sh*t or whatever whatever, after I get all that out the way I’ll go back to DOOM and finish off another seven songs and we can drop that. AllHipHop.com: So Shaolin Vs. Wu-Tang, a Wu-Tang Clan album without the RZA, is actually going to happen?Ghostface Killah: Whatever Rae want to do right now, it’s on him. I know he wants his Cuban Linx II out. So whatever we going to do, we going to do so it’s on me. Yeah, as of right now he was willing to pursue it. It’s whatever, I know how things be changing and sh*t. AllHipHop.com: What’s you relationship with RZA now since Rae had some words about not feeling the tracks on 8 Diagrams?Ghostface Killah: Ni**as still love RZA. It’s just that…he just did a few f*cked up things. The album could have been a little more better, but I guess to each his own. AllHipHop.com: Alright, appreciate the time Ghost.Ghostface Killah: Alright no doubt. Motherf*ckers be asking me some real dumb questions man, ni**as be getting on my nerves with that bullsh*t, but this is probably the best one I did all day.