Ghostface Producer Adrian Younge Talks Rapper's New Album
Ghostface Killah’s first album was released 17 years ago, but as the Wu-Tang rapper and producer Adrian Younge prep the upcoming release of his tenth album 12 Reasons to Die, Ghost is returning back to the cinematic roots he developed with 1996's Ironman and 2000's Supreme Clientele.
“It's an album composed for Ghostface in a way that RZA would've done it in the late 1960s had he teamed up with David Axelrod and Ennio Morricone,” says Younge, referencing the oft-sampled composers. “ I wanted to be the person who brought hip-hop back to what I felt it was: organic, like you feel a human in there.”
While Ghostface’s recent albums all utilized some live instrumentation, Younge recorded the entire album to tape using all live instruments, imagining hip-hop samples and working with RZA to expand his initial compositions. “I wanted to do it from a cinematic approach because Ghostface is a cinematic MC,” says Younge. RZA stayed on-board, serving as the album's executive producer.
Younge also shared a surprising compliment from one of film’s biggest directors. “RZA told me that Quentin Tarantino said that two of the greatest American songwriters are Bob Dylan and Ghostface,” says Younge. “I wanted to accentuate Ghostface’s talent of being one of the illest storytellers in the world and try my best to put him on an even higher hip hop pedestal.”
Ghostface Killah recently shared the first track "The Rise of the Ghostface Killah" on Soul Temple's Bandcamp page.
12 Reasons to Die is out April 16 on Soul Temple Records
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