As well as being a solo artist, Ghostface is a key member of the hip hop collective, the Wu-Tang Clan. He found his fame and started his career in the successful hip hop group, which consisted of seven members. The members all went solo following the success of the group, although Ghostface continued to collaborate with a lot of his former group. Ghostface’s first solo EP did not come about until 1996, four years after he found fame in the Wu-Tang clan. The EP was entitled ‘Ironman’ and debuted at the number two spot on the Billboard 200 chart, a brilliant achievement. The album possessed a distinctive soul style that would continue to feature on many of Ghostface’s songs.
Ghostface Killah’s most critically acclaimed albums are his 2000 venture ‘Supreme Clientele’ and his 2006 album ‘Fishscale’. He is particularly well known for his distinctive musical style: he is praised for his loud, fast paced flow and his emotional free style rapping which often contains cryptic slang. He was honoured in 2006 by MTV when they placed him on their list of The Greatest MCs of All Time and again by the editors of About.com when he was placed on their list of the Top 50 MCs of Our Time.
Born Corey Woods, Raekwon joined the nascent Wu-Tang Clan in 1992, just in time to feature heavily on their ground-breaking debut album Enter The Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers. Right off the bat the album was a massive critical success, acclaimed by all who heard it for its uncompromising, almost threatening atmosphere and the sheer skill of all the M.C’s involved. Staggeringly, for an album so uncompromising, it was also a pretty serious chart success, just missing the top forty of the Billboard 200 and producing some big hit singles on rap radio like “C.R.E.A.M” and “Can It All Be So Simple”. With that, Raekwon was part of a movement, but after their debuts success, the band went their separate ways to record solo albums.
Raekwon’s effort came in 1995. He signed a record deal with Loud Records in 1994 and while his debut didn’t make him a star the way that Method Man’s “Tical” did for him, “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…” was critically revered for Raekwon’s lyricism and RZA’s production work. The record remains the most acclaimed solo record from a Wu-Tang Clan member, along with GZA’s “Liquid Swords” to this day and for very good reason. The record was still a big hit with that in mind, selling over a million copies in a year and giving him a top forty hit single on the Billboard Hot 100 in the form of “Ice Cream”. He followed this with a victory lap in the Wu-Tang Clan, whose second record “Wu-Tang Forever” was an enormous hit both critically and commercially, scoring the group two Grammy awards to boot.
However, this level of acclaim and success would not be repeated for a while. His next two solo projects gained mixed reactions critically and commercially, and he wouldn’t truly find his feet again until 2009. He released a sequel record to “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx” and unlike most sequels, it was hailed as equally good as its predecessor and as a return to form for its creator. It also mirrored its chart success as well, peaking at number four on the Billboard 200. Since then, Raekwon has continued to make acclaimed records both with and without his Wu-Tang counterparts, and has turned his eye on a new generation of rappers with his label Ice H2O Records. He’s a true original, and for that, he comes highly recommended.
Pharcyde came together in the late 1980s as a group of dancers, and recorded a demo in 1991 that featured the tracks “Passin’ Me By” and “Ya Mama”. They drafted in artist management who had previously worked with Cypress Hill and House of Pain. Fortunately the demo landed in the hands of Mike Ross from Delicious Vinyl, who signed the group to his label in 1991.
The group recorded their debut album “Bizarre Ride II the Pharcyde” and released it on November 24th 1992; the album earned Gold certification by the RIAA in 1996 in addition to having already earned plenty of critical acclaim. Their single, “Passin’ Me By” peaked at number 52 on the Billboard Hot 100, and the song made it to the soundtrack of the movie, Big Daddy. Following the release, of the album, the band managed to make the line up of the Lollapalooza festival in 1994. It was around this time that the band also earned the “Album of the Year” title from Time Magazine.
With one hit record already under their belts, it was time for the release of another one. This time it was “Labcabincalifornia”, which was released on November 14th 1995. They had a video directed by film producer and director, Spike Jonze for the song “Drop” which made it to number 5 on the Hot Rap Singles Chart, whilst the album made it to number 37 on the Billboard 200.
On November 7th 2000, the band released their third full-length studio album entitled “Plain Rap” which unfortunately didn’t chart as high as the previous two albums, but the single “Trust” did make it to number 15 in the US Rap Charts.
The duo came together when they both enrolled at the High School of Art and Design in New York City. When they first formed, they were the self proclaimed ‘Poetical Prophets’, but changed their name to Mobb Deep to “reflect their reputation on the streets”.
Their reputation began to grow when they found success with their second album, “The Infamous” which was released on April 25th 1995. The album was described as a narration of street life, and it was the single “Shook Ones Pt. II” that received positive critical acclaim within the hip-hop community. With a career that was growing exponentially, Mobb Deep’s third album, entitled “Hell on Earth”, released on November 19th 2006, on Loud, RCA and BMG Records that climbed into the Billboard 200 and reached a peak position of #6. The two singles from the album “Front Lines (Hell on Earth)” and “G.O.D Pt. III” made it to 13 and 18 in the Hot Rap Singles Chart.
Mobb Deep were on the front line of the East Coast vs West Coast hip-hop rivalry, which was of course promoted by the media. It began when Snoop Dogg and the West Coast group, The Dogg Pound released “New York, New York”, to which Mobb Deep alongside Capone-N-Noreaga and Tragedy Khadafi lashed back with “L.A L.A”.
They released the album “Infamy in 2001, which was a step in another direction musically diverting away from the raw and stripped-down sound. With change, comes criticism, especially fans claiming that their favourite act have sold out. Their career would go on to earn a place in the video game “Grand Theft Auto IV”. With a new label signing on 50 Cent’s G-Unit Recrods, they released their seventh studio album “Blood Money” on May 2nd 2006. The album features guest appearances from Nate Dogg and Mary J.Blige.
On April 1st 2014, the hip-hop duo released their eighth studio album, “The Infamous Mobb Deep". The album features guest appearances from Busta Rhymes, Snoop Dogg and Juicy J.
Of all the members of the Wu-Tang Clan, Ghostface Killah has one of the most consistent records in terms of his solo output. Sure, you probably can’t quite put Ironman up there with GZA’s Liquid Swords or Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx..., but then again, Ghost has yet to make anything quite as bad as, say, Immobilarity either. Instead, he’s turned out fine record after fine record, including recent efforts like Apollo Kids and the thematically-complex Twelve Reasons to Die. As usual, he’s found himself spending this summer on the road in Europe, having just played a slew of UK club shows. He passed up the opportunity to preview new cuts from the forthcoming Supreme Clientele 2: Blue & Cream LP - or indeed anything from Wu-Block 2, the second instalment in his collaboration with Sheek Louch, who was in attendance - but did run through the classics, including ‘Daytona 500’ and ‘Winter Warz’ from his own back catalogue as well as Wu classics ‘Protect Ya Neck’ and ‘Can It Be All So Simple’. He threw a few of his bandmates’ choice cuts in, too - GZA’s ‘4th Chamber’ included - and invited audience members to join him onstage to fill in for Method Man and ODB. He probably doesn’t deliver the slickest stage show in hip hop, but whether that’s necessary when a true legend is playing intimate venues is highly questionable anyway.
Joeg_67
I've been a fan of Raekwon for a long time, so when I heard he was finally coming around in concert, I got tickets right away.
The show didn't disappoint. He did a ton of Wu- Tang songs, which was really awesome. He also did some super old songs as well. I think they were off one of albums from the mid-90's. From there, he did some songs from Wu-Tang members, specifically Method Man and GZA. It was a very nostalgic show, at least for me. I grew up on a lot of those songs, so to hear them live was a real treat. He interacted with the crowd a lot in between songs, which was nice to see. A lot of performers can't be bothered to do that anymore, so that he took the time to do it was awesome.
Overall, I was really happy with the hour long set. He stuck to mostly popular songs, as there were only one or two that I didn't know. It was more of a Wu-Tang tribute than anything else, which was fine with me. I did have a good time, and would definitely go check him out again live if given the opportunity.
This one’s a little bit complicated, so you might have to bear with me; there are effectively two different iterations of The Pharcyde currently touring and playing shows. The first, under the original name, is comprised of Imani and Bootie Brown, and they sporadically play gigs, including a handful of European festivals this summer. The other version of The Pharcyde - and the one I’ll focus on here - involves the other two original members, Fatlip and Slimkid3, who played the group’s seminal Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde record in its entirety at The Roxy in Los Angeles two years ago, and found it to be such a success that they’ve since taken the show on the road. Flanked by the record’s producers, J-Swift and L.A. Jay, and performing in front of a modest video screen, the pair deliver an affectionate tribute to the album that saw them break through into the mainstream, with plentiful crowd interaction and thrillingly energetic renditions of the likes of ‘Oh Shit’ and ‘Passin’ Me By’. Granted, this isn’t officially The Pharcyde, and perhaps it’s a tad disingenuous to label the shows as such, but I can’t imagine there’s been too much in the way of post-show demands for refunds; Fatlip and Slimkid3 are well-versed in the art of showing the crowd a good time, and that’s ultimately all that matters.
Joeg_67
If you’ve ever fallen into the trap of thinking that modern hip hop, primarily concerned with nauseating levels of materialism, is representative of the genre as a whole, you perhaps haven’t heard one of the finest tracks of the nineties, Mobb Deep’s ‘Shook Ones (Part II)’. Over one of the most iconic beats ever made, - foreboding, sinister and unremittingly menacing - Prodigy and Havoc spin a genuinely bleak tale of life in Queensbridge as a youth, where they’re engaged in gang warfare. When Nas did the same, in the same year, on Illmatic, he approached the subject in a manner that laced it with his own ambitions; Mobb Deep, though, offer no such respite across their classic debut LP, The Infamous. After a rocky past few years, which saw Prodigy jailed for gun possession and then feuding with Havoc upon his release, the pair have reconciled and toured Europe this summer, although the UK was conspicuous by its absence from the touring schedule. Twenty years on from their breakthrough, they still display an uncanny understanding of each other’s flow, and their onstage interplay is superb, more than making up for the lack of a live band. With their first studio record in eight years, The Infamous Mobb Deep, dropping earlier this year, it can’t be long until they do make a long-overdue return to British shores - don’t sleep on it when it happens.
Joeg_67
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