Ghostface Killah's eighth studio album, released two years after his last. Sean C & LV of The Hitmen are the main producers of the project, the remaining beats are provided by Scram Jones, Blickstreet, Mahogany, Austin "Watts" Garrick, Rashad "Ringo" Smith, Skymark, Bei Maejor, Tim Bosky, JUSTICE League, Clyde & Harry, LT Moe, Anthony "Acid" Caputo and Xtreme. The guests are mainly singers, Shareefa, Raheem DeVaughn, Jack Knight, Estelle, Fabolous, John Legend, Adrienne Bailon, Lloyd, Ron Browz, Kanye West and Ne-Yo.
The album is opened by "Not Your Average Girl": boom bap pretty weak invented by Scram Jones along with Blickstreet. Scarce, poor uptempo drum, weak loops pseudo rock, samples from Joe Simon's "Drowning in the Sea of Love", poor raw bass confined in background. Ghostdeini tries to save the track, rnb hook performed by Shareefa, this isn't a good start for a Tony Starks disk. Raheem DeVaughn executes a rnb chorus in the next choice, "Do Over": ballad provided by Mahogany, thick strings, scarce dusty dirty midtempo drum, good bass, sample from Norman Feels' "You Can't Stop My Love", Ghostface enters velvety, soft and delivers quietly. Here the record tries to return to very-high quality levels, with a soundscape that seems to come directly from the world of "The Wizard of OZ" (1939).
Raheem "Radio" DeVaughn stays to support Starks with the autotune for this single love ballad by Ghostdeini, on a ballad rhythm created by Watts and Ringo. Boom bap, dry drum midtempo, solid bass, sweet piano keys in loop, sample from Ryuichi Sakamoto's "Grasshoppers". Silky velvety delivery by GFK that builds one of his many singles in his career, not memorable here unfortunately. Sean C & LV produce the next ballad, "Lonely": vibrant rhythm, poor downtempo drums, good samples from Love, Peace & Happiness' "Lonesome, Lonely & Alone", singer Jack Knight on the track, good guitar, nice riff. If up to this point the album hasn't been weird enough even to be a Ghostface Killah album, here comes an explicit sexual cut where the rhythm is outclassed by moans and orgasms from the first second to the last. "Stapleton Sex" is a bad track, avoidable, never necessary.
The sixth choice boasts an average rhythm provided by Skymark, mild samples from "Stay a Little Longer" by Yvonne Fair, mid rapping performed by the main rapper. "Paragraphs of Love" is another ballad, Bei Maejor and Tim Bosky behind the keyboards, passable track that doesn't stick in the memory. There's a sample from Johnny Pate's "El Jardia" in the next joint, where Ghost goes back n forth with Fabolous over a JUSTICE League rhythm that doesn't say anything. The Hitmen duo returns behind the keyboards for "Let's Stop Playing", where the Stapleton artist is joined by John Legend on a production with samples from Marvin Gaye's "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)". Clyde and Harry produce the tenth choice that goes a little bit unnoticed, even due to an average rhythm with a sample from The Whatnauts' "We'll Always Be Together".
"I'll Be That" presents Adrienne Ballon that offers a chorus in rapping over a soft musical carpet created by LT Moe, Ghostface spits without inspiration here. Sean C & LV realize an average production for "Goner", GFK still on the mic, Lloyd for the chorus, this track is passable. "She's a Killah" is the first of a couple of bonus tracks: cheap tribal bouncy beat provided by Anthony Acid, reggae chorus by Ron Browz. Ghost Face Killer can't save this thing for all the effort in there world and here he goes on autopilot straight to the club, over this beat for the club, really bad. What Anthony Acid did here? This productions is closer to disco dance, EDM and techno than hip-hop. The last bonus is the remix of "Back Like That" with Kanye West and Ne-Yo, already included in "More Fish" three years earlier.
Released by Def Jam, the record sells over 60,000 copies in the first two months, reaching the spot number 28 in the Billboard 200 and the third one among hip-hop efforts. It's one of Ghostface's most polarizing albums, with most critics welcoming it positively, but there are also some pannings. This record features an hour of Ghostdeini offering ballad songs for women, inspired by "The Wizard of Oz", traveling on a gold brick road already walked by Dorothy Gale in the past towards the lush lands of the futuristic sprawling metropolis Emerald City blessed by Wu-Tang — for the first time in his career, the author feels the need to place the symbol of the supergroup on the cover of his solo album — and where instead of meeting various extravagant characters, he only meets girls one more libidinous than the other, so it's quite shocking for a hardcore rap / coke rap fan who had followed him up to this point: it seems like an album to never buy, 3.5/10.
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