q&a Ghostface How you doing? I’m chilling right now, promoting this album, doing it big. This album Fishscale just dropped in stores right now. Just finishing up these shows right now. How have things changed for you? The Wu was like a bunch of greats but at the same time it was a lot of us. It’s a lot different when you on your own. You ain’t got anybody to hold your hand. It’s like the coming of man. You learning the business on your own and you’re making your decisions on your own and how you want your album to sound and what direction you gonna go with it. It’s just living on your own. How do you engage people in your shows? I don’t know, I always had a lot of soul and emotion in me. Over the years I learned to mingle with the crowd. When you first come in you don’t what to do because it’s just a lot of people there. I know how a lot of brothers who just get the mic and stand there and rhyme all day but the crowd want you to make them feel so I just want to grab them and make them feel how I feel while I’m doing it even if I don’t catch them with my words. But I do catch them with my words so I give them the best of both worlds, give them my energy and my vocal. What can we expect from the album? It’s refreshing as far as the sound. The game has changed drastically since when I came out with Wu. Just expect the same old Ghostface. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I just do what I do and I went with a lot of underground producers. I just wanted to bring a nice vibe. When I do albums it’s based on the vibe. Even the women are feeling you. How’s that? It’s all good because I’m here for women too. They can go ahead and dig my joints like the joint I got with Ne-Yo. I want to appeal to everyone - male, female. All races from all sides of the board. It’s all love to see more women. As I go along I’m going to do more music for women because they can help us reach the babies more quicker than the men because there aren’t a lot of men in the households these days. I’m going to go ahead and throw the darts for them too. A lot of artists don’t show a softer side. How do you do it? I don’t know. I’m just not afraid to express what I feel inside. When I go to my shows I got shows in my head lined up that I can go to Broadway and do what I do. I just like to create what I see in my head. With other brothers maybe the swagger ain’t there or they scared to let it go. I really can’t tell you though because it’s just me. I just like to do my music. There’s seems to be an absence of substance in music today, not like the soul music. Speak on that. Cause it’s a whole new generation of fans. When I was 18 I had my first child and I know that as a parent they wasn’t even playing that kinda music around their children. When I was a baby my parents were playing that. Everything new now. In the late 80s is when the parents lost control and that stopped children from knowing who God was cause we didn’t even want to go to church. Everything shut down so that’s why everything is all off balance now. There’s no guidance. I’m scared that if something happen to the older generation, what’s gonna happen to soul music? Your lyrical abilities stand out. How do you make sure you stay on top of it? Nowadays I need more practice. I need practice because I’m not practicing as much and I find myself getting stuck and sometimes it takes me a long time to write a song. It depends on the zone I’m in, sometimes I can just see. Even if I like it too much it becomes hard because I don’t want to mess up the story. I used to use a mirror when I was younger but now that I’m older I just take my own time. Every rhyme 34
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I write is not a good rhyme but I just do me and what sounds good to me. I do need more practice though. And when I practice things are going to go crazy. When you exercise your art you definitely get better. What are some standout tracks to you from the album? “My Strap”, “Crack Spot”, and “Underwater”. Those tracks really show my emcee skill. I like to go with different aspects. Even “Bus Stop” is a nice one. These are different drug topics. Did the album take a while? I flew through the album. As long as I’m locked down I can go ahead and do it. This album took me four or five months. I don’t smoke weed no more and this is my first album without being on weed. Sometimes weed opens up a closed door and sometimes music sound better on weed. I could have taken a hit and gotten some lines but then it would make me forget sometimes. Plus I’m a diabetic so the weed used to make me sluggish and it’d take me a long time to do things. With weed I’d have taken a different approach with the album so I don’t know which way is better but I’m doing what I need to. It seems like some maturity is coming back to the game. How do you feel? That’s peace right there. When I hit 40 I can’t keep rhyming about crack, guns, and murder. It’s gotta be a time when you go ahead and start rhyming about real life. We can save the world through our music. Even if you selling drugs you got your radio with you and people love music. I just feel like as we grow we need to watch what we’re saying and be a lot more positive. We’re caught in a devil mentality and it’s not amounting to anything and there’s kids believing what we saying on the records when they should be getting their education. They going to mess up and get locked up. I want to start getting at everyone. I gotta start delivering the message to them. - Rohit Loomba (Photo: Scott Schafer)