Commentary: An Exploration of Love Through Ghostface Killah's 'Wizard of Poetry'
By Star Watson, Staff Writer
As I listened to Ghostface Killah’s latest album Ghostdini: The Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City, I noticed he took a whole new approach to the rap game. Some would think he went all soft and lovey-dovey. Some would think he is trying to expand his craft from just talking about the drug game. Some would think he is doing what he does best -- exposing the world to the life he knows.
What kind of life is that? Obviously, if you listen to his album, he is diving into the field of love in the hip-hop community, an area often forgotten thanks to the violent and homophobic images portrayed by the music industry. With such popular hip-hop songs like Gucci Mane's “Wasted” and popular hip-hop groups with names resembling the slaughtering of animals/emcees (i.e. Slaughterhouse), one couldn’t help but ask: Where’s the love in hip-hop music? The moment we ask that question, we come to Ghostdini.
I believe Ghostface’s purpose with the album, and most agree, is to exalt the old school love in the Black community, especially the kind of love that was sung about in the '60s and '70s. His album pays homage to old school R&B from the “thick and thin, 'til death do us couples part” lyrical content, to the samples used, much of which came from the prominent R&B figures from the 1970s. If you listen to the samples used, you hear such titles as “You Can’t Stop My Love” by Norman Feels (in “Do Over”), “Stay A Little Longer” by Yvonne Fair (in “Stay”), “We Will Always Be Together” by the Whatnauts (in “Forever”) and more.
When I heard the album in its entirety, all I could think of was my family. I thought of my parents, who were together for about 30 years until my father passed away, and my grandmother and her “friend” who lived together as long as I can remember but never married because of the respect they had for my grandfather. Not to forget the complications my folks faced while together –- from money problems to trust issues –- reminded me that love was always something people can’t stray from, as much as they may try. And with Ghostface’s album, he brings love back into hip-hop, as much as the community tries to stray away. And the hip-hop community in Athens cannot help but agree.
I figure just telling a personal account of how Ghostdini touched me isn’t enough, so I wanted to see if the hip-hop heads in Athens felt the same way. I sat down in an Ohio University Hip-Hop Congress meeting and asked members if everyone had listened to Ghostface’s latest album. Quite a few people raised their hands and had a look on their face that resembled kids on Christmas day.
“I think it’s a breath of fresh air to hear somebody like Ghostface step outside the box,” senior Acie Middleton said. People looked confused when he said 'box,' so he went on, “I thought it was gonna be like 808s and Heartbreaks [by Kanye West], which I didn’t like at all because it was too electronic for me, but Ghost’s album was like an homage to old school R&B. Not in his sampling, but the message he brought had that old school feel to it, and no one really wants to do that anymore.”
“Paragraphs of Love” was a song heavily picked by a lot of listeners of the album. Most feel it is the best song that represented the love Ghost was getting at in his album. It certainly is the song that tells the tale of love at first sight, despite the complications both Gabby (played by R&B singer Estelle) and Tony (played by Ghostface) faced, her being married with a child on the way and him being with another woman. “With the song, you're expressing your love in ways that are easy for people to understand if talking about your emotions is a hard thing to do,” senior Chris Crosby said.
“There’s a lot of male perspective that Ghost speaks on in this song, so to me it’s relative and relatable,” added Middleton. One thing that the group also talks about is how difficult it is for rappers to express their emotions without being seen as soft. Ghostface manages to throw in his lyrics as poetry, all the while keeping it street. He says to the lady of the song, “This is art, Picasso I got him beat in the flesh / I’m staring at beauty, Nefertiti, herringbone in her chest…” He then adds, “Miss Thing she’s a fierce one, two and three / Bad little mama, she built like Alicia Keys.” With those two lines and more, he tries to win her impregnated heart by spitting poetic and street lyrics to her.
So what about “Let’s Stop Playing”? When was the last time you heard a rapper respectfully profess his desire for another woman with such sexual fantasies that would not only bag the girl but keep his street cred? He says, “You still sexy, luscious, and all them big words… I had no choice but to raise the press up / Explain how I feel, it’s only your love I want the best of.”
It’s rare to hear a rapper speak so well on a chick he is feeling, and with John Legend singing the hook, the song is the least disrespectful off his album, although he is fantasizing about a woman who has a man while he too is in a relationship. “You don’t see very many people step out of the box,” Middleton said. "It’s like it’s not cool for a rapper to say he’s digging a girl without placing her into an extreme fantasy, or making her ‘his.'"
And in walks “Stapleton Sex." For a song that is practically a sex scene, Ghost manages to keep the song a respectful desire for a woman, all while keeping it hood. While flirting with the lines of misogyny, this song is ultimately a fantasy with the consent to get nasty. I figured that the group would be opposed to liking “Stapleton Sex” because of its vulgarity, but they actually appreciate him going there without objectifying women. “You can talk about sex without calling them names,” senior Ahmed Alam said. "People get the song mixed up with Plies’ style of rap, but Ghost doesn’t go as far as Plies does with this song."
“In Ghostface’s album, it felt like more of an old school R&B or soul album, where they talk about sex, love, and all that stuff, but it’s not in a demeaning or vulgar way. It’s some old school love,” said Alam.
So I asked about the old school feel and about how love plays out in the urban community; basically “hood love." People seemed taken aback by the term. “I don’t think our standard of love is should be defined by mainstream society,” senior Starla Ford said. "Whereas people see love on TV that comes with all these boundaries and limits, there’s also a love that’s more flexible, and that’s what I grew up on."
“Forever” is a song that symbolizes the love most people in the hip hop community feel -- the old-school love that Ghost gets at. The content of this song covers much of the love my parents and grandparents shared towards each other and the family – how the two can make love one day (although no one wants to think that of their parents) and then curse each other out the next, just as Ghost does with his verses.
The first verse is a scene of him making love to her, the second verse is where they argue, and the third verse shows how much she means to him and how people treat love nowadays as opposed to when he was growing up. Throughout the '60s and '70s there were many marriages and people “shacking up” in the Black community that were out of wedlock and suddenly immersed in parenthood. But the couples stayed together because they couldn’t really afford to break up or get a divorce, much like my grandparents did.
Most huge families, like mine, can give credit to the “thick and thin” mindset grandma and grandpa had when they came together in holy matrimony. This mindset gave the two the ability to form a huge family, but at the same time gave future generations the impression that it was suffering to be with someone just because they are having a baby together.
And through it all, people like Ghost and I saw a love not torn apart by things people break up and divorce over now, but a love overcoming the struggles of living day-to-day. From being with a flirty boyfriend to marrying the girl-next-door, Ghostdini showed me that these kinds of people still generate a love that can be bruised but never broken.
Disclaimer: Star Watson is the Forums Director of OU's Hip-Hop Congress.
