Apollo Kids

I'm not one of those "stop-rapping-about-guns-drugs-and-ladies" types - if you're going to attack familiar subject matter with the kind of wild-eyed fervor that Raekwon brought to 2009's Only Built for Cuban Linx Pt. 2, then you won't hear any complaints from me. But the thing with Ghostface Killah is that, at least on his solo albums since 2005's amazing Fishscale, he's seemed as bored with those topics as any of his subject-matter-detractors, but he insists on talking about them anyway. And so it basically doesn't matter that his latest album Apollo Kids has a pretty solid collection of nostalgic soul-sampling beats - it's Ghost on autopilot, and his lyrics have all the ingenuity suggested by song titles like these: "Ghetto", "Drama", "2getha Baby" (just as a point of reference, here's a few from Cuban Linx 2: "Pyrex Vision", "Surgical Gloves", "House of Flying Daggers"). Critics have mostly been giving this stuff a pass because Ghostface at his most listless is about on par with your average rap album, and that's not really wrong, but why should I care about an artist who has no particular interest in proving his vitality?

The only moments where Apollo Kids actually comes alive are at the points where Ghost seems to be displaying any kind of sincerity. The opening track, "Purified Thoughts", is such a tease because it finds Ghostface fed up with the seaminess of ghetto life and instead aiming his spirit higher, with mystical visions of redemption and a return to Africa (this is immediately followed by a track called "Superstar", where the most clever thing Ghost manages is the name-checking of several liquor brands). And later, on "In Tha Park", Ghostface assumes the mantle of hip-hop historian , delivering a clever reminiscence about old-school DJs with equipment jury-rigged to light-pole wires (although Black Thought then proceeds to completely out-rap Ghost with a nostalgic look back at Philadelphia rap).

It's not like Ghost can't rap effectively about the streets anymore - his Cuban Linx pt. 2 verse on "Cold Outside" is one of the most horrifyingly vivid storyteller verses he's ever done ("They found a two-year-old strangled to death/With a Love Daddy shirt on in a bag on the top of the steps"). And it's also not like he really should be urged to try something different, because then he just decides to do something like the atrocious for-the-ladies Ghostdini: Wizard of Poetry. The main issue here is just that he's not really, you know, trying. At all. I'd be more forgiving about all this if he actually had just fallen off and just wasn't capable of top quality anymore, but from the evidence, it seems apparent that he's now less interested in making quality rap than he is in lazy cash grabs.

"Purified Thoughts" - Ghostface Killah ft. Killah Priest and GZA


"In tha Park" - Ghostface Killah ft. Black Thought


"Cold Outside" - Raekwon ft. Ghostface Killah