Ghostface Killah Has a New Album, a Memoir, and Some Striking Thoughts on Modern Hip-Hop | INTERVIEW
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/m...um-1235023203/
Your last album was in 2019. Have you been working on this specific project since that point?
No, it came about, like, a year ago. But I got joints that’s on there that’s old joints. I was planning on doing an R&B album first. So that’s why you hear a couple of R&B tracks on there. But then I said, “No, I can’t do that. My fans will be mad at me trying to do all this shit.” And then I said, “Let’s start with a couple of hard joints.” Started to get more hard joints, [and] I weighed the R&B joints on it because it was supposed to be two sides: Guns and Roses. Roses was the [R&B] side, Guns was the [rap] side. But it took a while because I’ve been on tour. We did 70 tour dates and the Vegas residency and all that shit.
How did it feel being back with your brothers for the first time in a while, touring the world?
It’s a blessing, bro. It’s fun to get to work with your brothers. We’re older now. A lot of mood swings and shit like that though. But that’s what you get as you get older and you realize this is a job, bro. You got to handle your business.
How do you gauge potential fan feedback versus doing what you feel inspired to do artistically? How do you balance the two?
I do what I feel is right. I just know I didn’t have a real Ghostface album to myself in a long time. So that’s why I was like, “No, I can’t do an R&B album.” I said, “You know what, I got to give it to the fans that knew me for what I came in for. And keep a couple of female tracks on there that the females know me for, too.”
How fun is it to still be sparring with Raekwon and Method Man years later?
My brothers always sharpen my sword. Meth came in on the record, he bodied it. I did my parts and I sent it to him, and he came back with the monster body over my shit. And I’m like, “Oh, shit.” But that’s how it goes. You send a nigga a track, you make sure you do what you do. And then he going to study you. In rap, when you send a nigga your track and he comes back, what you had sent to him with his shit, it’s almost like boxing. You throw a jab, and that nigga calculates your jab and catch you. He’s a good counter puncher, too. [And] I know I’m a very good counterpuncher.
To keep that boxing analogy going, what kind of fight do you prefer? When you’re in the studio with the artist, writing along with them? Or this era where you’re sending stuff or getting stuff sent to you?
I don’t really like to write with artists in there unless we going back-to-back. I like to focus. And sometimes, yo, it all might not even come out that time [you’re in the studio]. A lot of times, I come back to the rhyme, do eight bars, leave it alone, don’t touch it. Or I might try to get it out the way. If I do get out the way, I could come back to the studio and [be like], “No, scratch that,” and then come with something else. That happens a lot, because what you feeling at that time. You don’t know if that will be [what you feel should be on the finished product]. Sometimes, you do know. A lot of times, you might’ve went home and said, “Yo, I should have started this way,” and catch a whole new vibe with a whole new rhyme and want to lay that down.
How did “Scar Tissue,” with Nas, come together?
I did “Scar Tissue” by myself. But then when I was shooting the video, the director of that video, he’s like, “Yo, I hear Nas on that.” And Nas is Mass Appeal. I’m basically signed to him. So it was a reach out, and he took care of it.
That was your first collaboration since 1995. How close had you previously come to collaborating?
We talked about it on the road. And it wasn’t about this collaboration right here, it was about something else. It just so happened to come about [on this project].
What keeps you motivated to rap in 2024?
I don’t listen to rap that much. But certain beats that I like, that I know that I could demo for me and my demographic, that’s what keeps me. I don’t listen to radio. I’m outside moving around, doing what I do. I get a lot of beats from new [producers] that’s fire, that give me that old feel like I had back in the days. So I choose them over a lot of the brand-name producers. A lot of the brand-name producers is trying to keep up with the Joneses out here, and it don’t match me.
Has there ever been an instance where an artist reached out to you and you might not have gotten back to them at the time, but then they get lit and you realize, “Oh, they hit me up a while ago!”
Yeah, Westside Gunn gave me a CD one time at a show, but it was a fly CD though. I think he had a Gucci apron on. I didn’t get to play it on the bus and shit. But, it stuck out to me though. He was like, “Yo, this is my shit.” I remembered that because, when he came out, I was like, “Oh, that was him on that CD.”
Can you speak to how far along Supreme Clientele II is?
It’s not too far off. We’re probably like, 75 to 80 percent done. But it’s been sitting in the closet for a minute. It’s vintage, but it sounds spanking new when you catch it. I think with that right there, we going to stamp hip-hop from what my generation know it is, know it to be, and just put the nail in the coffin with that. I don’t think there might ever be one of those kinds of records [again].
How long have you been working on it?
I got tracks on it [that are] 16, 17 years old. It’s like that. I kept it in the safe for a while. Every track is jewelry. It’s rare pieces of art.
The first Supreme Clientele had a very distinct, abstract lyricism that I really appreciated, songs like “Nutmeg” or “Mighty Healthy.” Do you feel like you’re going to be back in that lyrical chamber for this one? Or is it going to be a different approach?
I plan on doing a song like that. I didn’t want to get stuck in that world because a lot of people took it almost like, “Yo, what the hell is he talking about?” not knowing that was just a style that I used. But I think I’m going to throw one of those on it like that. It wasn’t nothing in me at that time because it was just words I put together that did it. But I felt I could go back into that bag and lay one out.
How do you think your craft has improved the most over the years?
I learned how to do hooks. I know what should be where [in a song] nowadays. Back then, I didn’t understand it. I just had RZA record me, and I took it from right there. I didn’t know what I wanted. I know what I want now. Even those sprinkles I might add in there, they’re co-produced. [I’ll be like], “Yo, put that in there. Let’s try this.” I take risks more. And [it’s about] basically taking your time. Don’t ever have a deadline. You don’t never want a deadline, ’cause once you got the deadline, if your [music] ain’t the way you want it to be, you going to have to hand the album in. That happened to me on my first album. After that, I never wanted a deadline. I didn’t get to make Ironman the way I wanted to make Ironman.
What did you do to help refine that process of making hooks?
I never was a hook dude. Now, I know how to layer my voice, even three times, four times. DMX told me, “If you want your record sounding mad big.…” Like how he be doing his hooks, he said he six-time [stacked] his hooks. So, I’m like, “Oh, OK. That was the thing.” And he was another guy that taught me, “Yo, you ain’t got to force it in the studio. You don’t got to lay a whole rap out. You could come back and do it again when you come back in the studio.” I was never a studio rapper. I come in, I like to have my shit written already, and then go lay it down. Nowadays I’m getting more comfortable with writing in there like I did in the beginning and stuff like that. But by myself, though, not with a bunch of niggas in there. I don’t like a bunch of people in the studio, because that’s my work.
Regardless if we’re doing a song together or nothing. Because now you’ve got me in there thinking that I’ve got to hurry up now, and do good because you might be faster than me and lay your shit down. I’m not here to compete with that. I’m just here to make music at my own leisure.
How often do you bring sample ideas to producers?
I don’t bring them to the producer unless I’ve got something, and that’s not too [often]. My engineer, he makes beats, so I might send him something I hear and be like, “Yo, hold that for a skit, or hold that.…” Or, “I need to make a beat out of that. Hold that.” But bringing them to other producers and stuff like that, no, I let them do what they do. Now, if I’m going to add on and be like, “Yo, I think this might sound good with that,” or whatever after they sent me the beat, then that’s different, though.
How’d the idea for your memoir come together?
My manager hit me one time and he was like, “Yo, you want to do this book,” right after U-God did his. I wasn’t really with it at first. He had to talk me into it and was like, “Yo, it’s mad easy though. All you’ve got to do is.…” And I thought about it, and I did it. And I went and sat with the writer over the phone for hours and knocked it out.
