Ghostface Thinking ‘Big’ With Albums, Book
November 30, 2007, 11:15 AM ET
Jeff Vrabel, Savannah, Ga.
Ghostface Killah barely let the dust settle after his 2006 double-shot of “Fishscale” and “More Fish” before starting work on his new “The Big Doe Rehab,” due Tuesday (Dec. 4) via Def Jam.
“I finished ‘More Fish,’ and just started looking for beats,” he tells Billboard.com. “I wanted a lot of street songs on (the record).” First single “We Celebrate” samples Rare Earth’s “I Just Want To Celebrate,” but tracks like “Yolanda’s House” (featuring Method Man and Raekwon) and “Walk Around” are heavy on the wicked, esoteric narratives for which he’s become known.
“I experimented with a lot of sh*t on ‘Fishscale’ and ‘Pretty Toney,'” he says. “I wanted to go back to the street.”
“Rehab” arrives just a week ahead of “8 Diagrams,” the first Wu-Tang Clan album in six years. The group will hit the road next month, but Ghostface, who missed several shows during Wu-Tang’s summer outing, acknowledges the on-stage lineup may change from night to night.
“We just go out and see who’s with it,” he says. “Some might not, and we’ve got to work around schedules to see where it’ll fit, because if it don’t fit, there’ll be another head missing, and (people) will start talking all that sh*t.”
Controversy has followed Ghostface of late, after “Rehab” was initially scheduled to drop on the same day as “8 Diagrams.” But the rapper says the situation was resolved simply by Wu-Tang moving their date back a week. “That’s just what it is,” he says. “I’m good, I’m alright. (People) are gonna hear my record anyway.”
One record they won’t hear for a while is his long-rumored collaboration with MF Doom. “Not as of right now,” he reports. “I’m about to go on the road again and I gotta finish up (the sequel to ‘Only Built 4 Cuban Linx’) with Raekwon, so maybe when everything gets cleared out of the way, but we’ll find a space.”
Acting’s been on his mind, too Ghostface’s “Iron Man” fixation scored him a cameo in the 2008 movie starring Robert Downey Jr. He also appears in the Judd Apatow-directed parody biopic “Walk Hard,” performing the Marshall Crenshaw-penned title track alongside Lyle Lovett, Jewel and Jackson Browne.
Finally, Jan. 8 will see the release of a Ghostface self-help manual, based on a series of promotional MTV shorts he shot in 2005 and what he calls “the world according to me, how I see certain things in my life, the way I explain s—.”
“This is my job right here,” he says of his busy schedule. “It feeds my babies and takes care of the bills.”
Source: Billboard
