It's an interesting question, how to age gracefully in hip-hop. You can try to keep up with new trends, or you can regress and appeal to the people who liked you twenty years ago, or you can say "fuck it," do your own thing, and just be comfortable with your legacy as a legend. With Ghostface, he's doing his own thing just as he's done every second since he popped up on "Protect Ya Neck." Still, with his newest "The Rise of the Ghostface Killah," Ghost is definitely retreating into the aesthetic of classic Wu—dusty vibes, an ODB-quoting chorus, crazy yet vivid street stories all around. But still, few rappers have thought to do what Ghost is doing here: giving himself an origin story. Produced by Adrian Younge, the track comes as the first taste of Twelve Reasons to Die, a concept album/graphic novel overseen by RZA and put out on Soul Temple Records.
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