FiyaStarter.com - Fiya on the Brownstone with Malik Sinsear

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“I was gonna drive around
the corner and get a blow job.”
-Charles Barkley
Drunk ass political hopeful.

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Brooklynite spitting flames on the current state of his first love, Hip-Hop from his stoop in Bedstuy. He may be from NY, but his love for the culture is first and foremost, so don't expect your typical east-coast bias, on this block. Malik is simply here to kick knowledge and wisdom for your understanding.

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(3 1/2) Fiyaballs

Album Review

Ghostface Killah - Fishscale
We're Souled On It
by: Malik Sinsear, for Entertainment

Doesn’t it seem like soul samples were just made for some rappers; like when you hear the first couple of notes of an obscure sped up 70’s ballad, you can virtually picture a certain MC start to paint a picture about his childhood in some poor city housing project? Well, if you can draw that picture and Ghostface Killah ain’t one of the first MC’s that comes to mind then you can stop reading now. Go to Iraq and play some kickball in a mine field or something nigga, we can’t use you on this one.

Back in 2001, when Jay-Z put KanYe West and Just Blaze’s production skills on display for the whole world to hear on The Blueprint album, just listening to joints like Song Cry and Heart of the City you can almost hear Ghost getting holy over the tracks. KanYe even later said that he had Tony Starks in mind when he made some of those classic beats. Those type tracks are just Ghost’s comfort zone. He’s not limited to just those records, but his albums shouldn’t have anything less than twelve of those songs on them. Why they don’t, I haven’t the slightest idea.

This is where we pickup Starks and his latest album, Fishscale. This record shines when Ghost gets to talk about the three things he describes exceptionally well; crime, being poor, brown-nosing and the subsequent heartbreak at the hands of a chick…oh yeah and his momma, so make that four things. After an unnecessary intro, you get thrown right into that big ass fire V from V for Vendetta escaped from with Shakey Dog. It’s a perfect story over a perfect beat with a cliffhanger better than Dallas’ in 1980. The unfortunate part about setting the bar so high off the break is that Fishscale spends the next 50 minutes trying to match the ‘tensity that Shakey Dog set. When it approaches doing so on stand out songs like Beauty Jackson, Crack Spot, Barbershop and R.A.G.U. featuring Raekwon they end up coming up short, literally, as in those songs’ only drawback are they are too short. It almost seems as if they’re cut short to make way for the all the damn skits scattered throughout the album, with the exception of Bad Mouth Kid where Ghost tells some bad ass youngin’, “I’ll whip your daddy’s ass.” I’m sure glad he said that, by the way, somebody needed to. If any kids are reading this, understand that ain’t nobody scared of your daddy, lil nigga.

Anyway, Ghost mostly shines on this record when he sticks to his four pronged success formula, but when he strays too far away from it on songs like Be Easy with it’s wick-wack and forced chorus, The Champ featuring Just Blaze’s most disappointing beat in recent memory and 9 Milli Bros., which makes you not even want the next Wu-Tang album to materialize, it takes a hit. Sandwiched in between another unnecessary skit, the CD finishes strong with the creative Underwater and heartfelt Momma featuring some chick named Megan who did a good enough job…ehhhhhh? Nope, she did and I needed an ending.