Favorite Albums: 2000-2004
43. Ghostface, The Pretty Toney Album
Original position on my Stylus ballot: n/a
I’m in a bad mood with rap these days. Too many guys yammering about things I wouldn’t necessarily yammer about, proud and faux-heroic about their selfish bullshit rather than playful and Dionysian. Meanwhile, older rappers who stand in opposition to the mainstream just do that - rap about how they’re not like those bad guys who sell more records - rather than introduce more worthwhile subject matter to the genre. These are generalizations, there are exceptions, yadda yadda, and it’s practically all stuff I’ve enjoyed in earlier contexts. No censo. But the genre’s critical gatekeepers seem to be far cooler with letting the toxic predictability of it all just wash over them in search of a good beat and a new hype. The genre’s thirty years old now, and I feel no responsibility to immerse in rap’s Totos and Saxons any more than rock’s. A 38 Special hit or two will be fine, thanks.
As would follow, there are few full-lengths in the last decade or so that don’t make me grumpy. But this is one. Sure, Ghostface is guilty of much of the same crap I don’t like from other guys, but between his unpredictable, imagistic wordplay, passionate delivery and the booming, bouncing hooks, the hate speech and bad politics on tracks like “Biscuits” and “It’s Over” aren’t their most notable elements. It’s not that I’m above flaunting my male privilege by vicariously enjoying some mack fantasies, I’ve just heard enough of them that the bar is pretty high. And if the jerk in question is not above a shameless sex jam with Missy Elliott, I’ll probably let him get away with more.
