Ghostface and Adrian Younge Prep 12 Reasons to Die II
Adrian Younge and Ghostface Killah have unveiled the return of their concept album project 12 Reasons to Die, coming on June 10th. The original, released in 2013, saw the apex of a couple of recurring fascinations for Ghostface. The first was a cinematic storytelling style, that saw the rapper lay out one enormous storyline over the course of the entire album. Wu-Tang fans know GFK as an expert in telling mob stories in song, but this was his first big attempt at long-form narrative. The second creative fascination on display was a focus on live instrumentation instead of sample-based beats. Adrian Younge is a composer first and foremost, having scored the blaxploitation satire Black Dynamite and put out several albums of psychedelic soul music – think the old Stax Records style, with a couple of decades of hip-hop history behind it. Ghostface’s two albums since 12 Reasons have also featured live players – 36 Seasons was a collaboration with Brooklyn soul group The Revelations, and Sour Soul saw him work with Canadian instrumental hip-hop group BadBadNotGood.
The original 12 Reasons to Die is a fun album – Younge and Ghostface work well together, and the Goodfellas-meets-Scream feel was fun. The album is a little slight – it clocks in just around 40 minutes, and the Wu veteran’s lyricism wasn’t as sharp as on some of his classic releases, perhaps subservient to the story. But even if the wordplay wasn’t as honed as on Iron Man or Supreme Clientele, Ghostface Killah is almost always fun to listen to, and there’s a lot to be said for a rapper branching out in so many ways at once, 20 years into their career.
More good news comes in the form of the guests from the Wu-Tang Clan. The RZA has signed on as narrator, Raekwon shares the spotlight on several tracks. Few fans would dispute that Ghost and Rae are at their best when they’re playing off of each other, goading one another to new heights.The two were heavily featured on each others’ debuts, to the point of each being on the cover of their friend’s album. His presence here bodes well.
The new album takes place about ten years after the original. The first album told the story of Tony Starks, an enforcer for the DeLucca mafia family in 1960’s Italy. As his influence started to grow, the DeLuccas conspired against him. The DeLucca’s hired a woman to seduce and distract him,then murdered him, melted him down, and pressed him into 12 vinyl records. When the records are played, his spirit rises from the vinyl and begins to enact brutal revenge. The follow-up album apparently takes place in 1970’s New York. Raekwon plays a gangster who finds the DeLuccas encroaching on his territory, and in his quest for retaliation, recalls the legend of the ghost that tormented the DeLuccas in the past.
It’s a ridiculous, grindhouse-y plot, but then Wu has always been playful and over-the-top. Part of what a lot of their successors never understood about them is that, yes, they were rapping about being in gangs, but those gangs were “forming like Voltron” and attacking each other with samurai swords. There’s always been an element of the fantastical, and the nerdy, in the music of the Wu-Tang Clan. In fact, the first 12 Reasons to Die was the subject of its own comic-book miniseries.
12 Reasons to Die II sure looks like a good time. With the relationship between Younge and Ghost well-established, and the presence of some of Ghost’s best collaborators in the Wu, it’s shaping up to be pretty exciting. You can pre-order an insane number of different editions of the album here in advance of the June 10th release, and you can check out the track “Return of the Savage” below. (Probably don’t listen to it at work.)
