Proceedings of the Rabble

culture notes by Ted Scheinman

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Steve the Drummer, flashing a post-show grin. Great audience at Tavern on the Green ~ thanks to all who came! (at TerraFin Station)

Steve the Drummer, flashing a post-show grin. Great audience at Tavern on the Green ~ thanks to all who came! (at TerraFin Station)

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Album review: Ghostface Killah, “Adrian Younge Presents Twelve Reasons to Die” (Slant magazine, 5/15/13)

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Ghostface Killah’s latest album, Adrian Younge Presents Twelve Reasons to Die, recounts the spaghetti-western origin myth of Ghostface’s longtime alter ego Tony Starks, who, we now learn for the first time, rose to prominence as a cocaine-rich foot soldier in the Deluca mafia super-syndicate. Soon, Tony finds himself backstabbed, and the murderous Deluca family presses his perforated corpse into 12 records. Little do they realize that Ghostface—being, you know, Ghostface—will rise again. Call Twelve Reasons to Die a concept album if you like (there’s even a companion comic book!), but it’s best to consider it a sort of one-off graphic novel: It’s all about scenes, and Ghostface keeps the frames moving as fast and vivid as ever. The rapper tends to benefit from the restraint of a concept (however ersatz that concept may be), and the transubstantiation-via-vinyl—indeed the entire fictional conceit—allows Ghostface to re-enter a full-on gangsterism that he’s more or less disavowed on latter-day albums. Revenge is the notional theme, but what matters is the variations, as he unleashes his percussive flow over live drums, bass, and keys. Even as producer Adrian Younge provides zany arrangements, full of the Clan’s campy cultural conjunctions (blaxploitation meets noir meets spaghetti western meets samurai flick), it’s the backbeat that leads, and Ghostface rhyming over an honest-to-God drumkit remains one of the more dependable partnerships in hip-hop.

Album review: Ghostface Killah, Adrian Younge Presents Twelve Reasons to Die. Slant magazine (5/15/13)

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