GHOSTFACE KILLAH
"The Big Doe Rehab"
Released: Dec. 4, 2007
Genre: Hip-hop
Official Site, MySpace, Wikipedia

LISTEN TO THE TRACKS

“DREAMS — YOU CAN'T really remember the dreams — but I was someplace, I don’t even know if it was rehab, but it was mad money in there. When I woke up, the first thing that came to my mind was 'The Big Doe Rehab.'”

And there you have it. Wu-Tang Clan virtuoso Dennis Coles, alias Ghostface Killah (among other things), titled his latest LP after a dream. What does it mean? Is he in rehab for his addiction to money? If so, what is the cure? More money? More weed? More emotive, soulful introspection and more vivid, witty yarns of paranoia and violence? Yes, please — God, let it be so.

Ironically, Ghost shows no signs of rehabilitation on "The Big Doe Rehab," the seventh studio album from the Wu’s critical darling and his third in as many years.

With "Rehab," New York’s amoral prince essentially travels down the same blood-stained, conflicted path that saw last year’s stellar "Fishscale" craft raw, rugged soul-infused soundscapes and reinvent the character of Ghostface Killah for the umpteenth time.

The results this time around are no less visceral and bizarre, but concise and streamlined enough such as to make its absorption a little easier.

There is one major shift here between this and its legitimate predecessor (after all, "Fishscale"’s companion piece, "More Fish," was little more than a glorified mixtape featuring Ghost’s friends and relations). While the delicious "Fishscale" was a certifiable epic, with sweeping, fully realized vignettes weaving together like an elaborate tapestry of vintage funk, pervasive crime and gleeful contradiction, "The Big Doe Rehab" is somewhat less tasty and more digestible.

The album is considerably shorter, and the only skits to speak of are an opening intro that makes salsa music and the “f” word go together like hot sauce on fajitas, and a recording of a drawn-out onstage outburst in which Ghost denounces “p***y” MCs. Anyone familiar with hip-hop albums will recognize what a feat of restraint this is.

For all his apparent moderation, however, Ghost holds very little back: Every track on "Rehab" is of some value; and as always it’s the weirdest and most detailed lyrics that justify the hurried pomp with which he delivers his lines.

Take, for instance, the intricate “Yolanda’s House”: “Sirens, I’m tryin to think and toss the iron/Blood on my sweats, got me runnin from, you think I’m lyin/May God strike me if you don’t like me, I’m tired and I’m outta breath/The weed got me paranoid, my heart’s poundin through my chest.”

Simply put, "Rehab" is only an affirmation that no one — not in the Wu, not in hip-hop, not in music today — can tell a story like Ghostface can. With the type of emotive, stream-of-consciousness songwriting that made Coles the revered artist he is today fully evident on his latest release, I wouldn’t consider it a stretch to call him the best straight-up lyricist since Bob Dylan.

Though he towers above his peers in today’s rap scene, the guest list on The Big Doe Rehab ensures that he remains in good company when he invites others into his colorful sonic digs. Raekwon and Method Man, ostensibly fresh from having blown everyone else out of the water on the Wu’s “comeback” album "8 Diagrams," take the most prominent supporting roles here, remaining in blistering form throughout.

Raekwon and Ghostface have historically had marvelous chemistry together, with Ghost playing an almost leading role in Rae’s 1995 masterwork, "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx," but this time it is Method Man who complements Ghostface and the album the most.

On "Rehab," the Wu’s intended prodigal son reawakens from years of rapping on autopilot to paint endearing and disturbing verbal portraits like this gem from “Yolanda’s House,” after Ghost’s run from the police leads him to disturb Meth in bed with a lady: “She’s asthmatic and you laughin, son/I bumped my toe on the nightstand just running trying to grab the gun.”

Coles’ Theodore Unit crew, who were featured prominently on last year’s "More Fish," have stepped their game up significantly since ruining quite a few tracks on the aforementioned companion piece to "Fishscale."

Ghostface’s son, Sun God, and protégé, Trife Da God, are featured on two tracks, in which they manage to more or less keep up with their mentor without numbing the effect of the cold, chilling production on the expansive “Yapp City” and the razor-sharp posse cut “Paisley Darts,” which also features Rae and Meth.

There’s even an extended acapella gospel interlude by some fellow named Ox, which sounds strange at first listen and becomes no less so after 17 additional spins.

Lest ye forget, however, the only things that really matter here are Ghost’s taste in music, which is impeccable (vintage soul grooves are sampled liberally throughout, intertwined with good old claustrophobic synth stabs), and the man himself, who has seemingly been at the peak of his abilities for more than a decade.

Like the best artists of any medium, Ghostface Killah doesn’t just change, he evolves. What lessens the impact of the album overall is that he’s still on approximately the same page as he was this time last year. On the flip side, "Rehab" is another window into the mind of the most important MC in hip-hop and one of music’s most compelling, fleshed-out characters.

With every album he’s released, he’s become a different artist and a different person. This time, he’s more or less the same — and though he likely won’t be next time we hear from him, an opportunity to witness the continuation and development of Ghostface circa '06-'07 is a tantalizing prospect that "Rehab" allows listeners to take full advantage of.

Ultimately, however, "The Big Doe Rehab" and everything that came before it is about Ghostface’s love of pure sound, affinity for expressive, detailed storytelling, and the way they are bound together in an infinitely complex record. I emphasize “record” because that’s exactly what this is — in fact, it’s the reason that albums have any value at all in an era when anyone can throw 18 tracks onto a playlist and listen to them on shuffle.

Picking and choosing tracks from truly great albums is missing the point entirely — what Dennis Coles understands, and channels so well through his music, is the idea that art is as emotive as it is aesthetic. He can play paranoid, traumatized first-time killer on “Walk Around,” snarling, decadent don on “Supa GFK,” and bitter, world-weary messiah on “I’ll Die For You” — he relishes contradiction because it is intrinsic to the complexity and nuance through which he sees the world around him.

"The Big Doe Rehab" isn’t quite the visionary tour de force that "Supreme Clientele" and "Fishscale" were, but until this old dog hits us with more of his new tricks, we can rest assured that the Wu’s last shining star is glowing brightly in the blood-soaked streets of New York.