{"id":6542,"date":"2019-02-22T18:52:07","date_gmt":"2019-02-22T23:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/?p=6542"},"modified":"2019-02-22T18:52:07","modified_gmt":"2019-02-22T23:52:07","slug":"review-czarface-ghostface-killah-czarface-meets-ghostface","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/22\/review-czarface-ghostface-killah-czarface-meets-ghostface\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Czarface &amp; Ghostface Killah &#8211; CZARFACE Meets Ghostface"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the return of the hip-hop collabs!!!<\/p>\n<p>For those not in the know: CZARFACE is are a hip hop trio consisting of underground Boston hip-hop duo 7L &amp; Esoteric and Wu-Tang Clan MC Inspectah Deck. Now these guys have been doing their thing since 2013 with 5 albums under their belt, including last year&#8217;s collaboration with legendary MC MF Doom for\u00a0<em>Czarface Meets Doom<\/em>. While I didn&#8217;t get around to reviewing that album, I did listen to it, and it was definitely something for hip-hop heads that want some good &#8216;ol bars. Since I mentioned DOOM, they&#8217;ve now collaborated with one of his associates in the form of legendary MC Ghostface Killah, who needs no introduction at this point in his career.<\/p>\n<p>This is also a sad reminder that DOOMSTARKS is never going to come, but that&#8217;s for another day and time. *cue violin playing in the background*<br \/>\nSo, with 12 tracks edging to 40 minutes and minimal to no features aside from vocals courtesy of Kendra Morris, how does the album come together?<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"747\" height=\"421\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jmf7XtfUoTo?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Well, like the last album CZARFACE made, it&#8217;s definitely made for an audience that craves boom-bap hip-hop with bars with a comic book style to it. Now that&#8217;s not knocking the album down as it has some nice production courtesy of the Czar-Keys (7L and Spada4). They&#8217;ve been producing for CZARFACE since the beginning and you get the staples of their sound with some sampling and even some weird comic-book like sounds thrown in there.<br \/>\nGhostface is known for his\u00a0 storytelling when rapping, and I often love it whenever he does, like on the track &#8220;Morning Ritual&#8221; with that haunting piano and horror sound. Esoteric has a verse here where he thinks some woman is stealing his money, but in reality, she just went to get them some breakfast.<\/p>\n<p>Since I mentioned horror sounds, that also comes through on the track &#8220;The King Heard Voices&#8221; as the backup vocals from Kendra Morris are proof of that, and this pops up in Ghostface&#8217;s verse with the line &#8220;<i>This sound like I&#8217;m in a horror fuckin&#8217; church or somethin&#8217; right now<\/i>&#8220;, and he&#8217;s right on the money. Another example of on-point bars is on the single &#8220;Iron Claw&#8221; where Ghostface disses those who came into the street life like they&#8217;re hard and got nothing to fear but in the end have no genuine cred like him.<\/p>\n<p>The line in question goes like this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a class=\"referent referent--yellow\" href=\"https:\/\/genius.com\/Czarface-and-ghostface-killah-iron-claw-lyrics#note-15971069\" data-id=\"15971069\">See, these young boys&#8217;ll murder you (Murder you)<br \/>\nAnd none of these niggas never heard of you (Heard of you)<br \/>\nWe popped a few things on a curb or two (Curb or two)<br \/>\nTo have you stretched out, layin&#8217; vertical (Vertical)<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>According to sources like Genius, it&#8217;s a jab against 6ix9ine&#8217;s song &#8220;BILLY,&#8221; and given the situation that he&#8217;s been through recently, well&#8230;. Ghost was right about him not being genuine. Inspectah Deck had a good verse on the song &#8220;Masked Superstars&#8221; where he goes off on:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Nowadays they took hatin&#8217; and made it cool<br \/>\nI play it cool like Dame Dash in Paid in Full<br \/>\nThat talk major bull, but couldn\u2019t swallow a plateful<br \/>\nOf food for thought, it&#8217;s so flavorful<br \/>\nArk and Czar kick it in the city<br \/>\nKiki never loved me, she busy doin&#8217; the shiggy<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yes, he referenced that damn Drake song with that stupid challenge, but he did it in a good way, though. You&#8217;ll notice many references to things like <em>Star Wars<\/em>, <em>007 <\/em>and<em> Get Smart<\/em> in &#8220;Super Soldier Serum&#8221;:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I&#8217;m part sleek and fly, part geeky guy that likes CGI<br \/>\nPart smack you, I don&#8217;t need a reason why<br \/>\nHe could lie on your sweetie pie, thinkin&#8217; Caesar five<br \/>\nFuck with Czarface, now that&#8217;s how people die<br \/>\nHey mark, my fade sharp, my stage smart<br \/>\n<a class=\"referent referent--yellow\" href=\"https:\/\/genius.com\/Czarface-and-ghostface-killah-super-soldier-serum-lyrics#note-16526974\" data-id=\"16526974\">Braveheart, back from the dead like Ray Park<br \/>\nI mean, Darth Maul for y&#8217;all, you wanna step, too?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Off the grid, Maxwell Smart is how I live<br \/>\nDaniel Craig, Casino Royale, I&#8217;m so slick<br \/>\nArmani suits, the linen is flame resistant<br \/>\nWhich means I can&#8217;t be scorched or burnt up in it<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>On &#8220;Mongolian Beef&#8221;, the topic at hand is keeping an eye on your enemies, and one of the more notable lines is when Esoteric shows he&#8217;s not too fond of Pharrell (or at least that&#8217;s what I got from the lyrics). Oh, and the last track is literally called &#8220;(Post Credits Scene)&#8221; like it&#8217;s like a hip-hop version of a Marvel stinger. All it&#8217;s missing is someone saying &#8220;CZARFACE will be back&#8230;,&#8221; and they probably will.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"747\" height=\"421\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0B3Ig2jkchg?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>All-in-all, this album is everything you expect from CZARFACE, from the weird boom-bap sound to the sampling and effects. I would say this is probably on par with their collaboration with DOOM, as Ghostface does his usual thing on this one, but he definitely sounds more gruff than usual. It&#8217;s not exactly all mind-blowing in scope like an\u00a0<em>Avengers<\/em> type of album, but this is more of an\u00a0<em>Antman\u00a0<\/em>(and no, that&#8217;s not an insult!) type of album.\u00a0It&#8217;s sticking to its guns and they still do their best in that regard.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong><br \/>\nFINAL VERDICT:\u00a0<\/strong>Stream It. If CZARFACE is up your alley, then you&#8217;ll going to love it.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>CZARFACE MEETS GHOSTFACE is available on CD, digital download, vinyl, cassette and on streaming services courtesy of SILVER AGE RECORDS<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&nbsp; It&#8217;s the return of the hip-hop collabs!!! For those not in the know: CZARFACE is are a hip hop trio consisting of \n<a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/22\/review-czarface-ghostface-killah-czarface-meets-ghostface\/\"> [...]<\/a>","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":6545,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","yasr_overall_rating":3.5,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"Product","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12],"tags":[1066,631,1194,1289,1290,819,503,1291],"class_list":["post-6542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-album","tag-album-review","tag-collaboration","tag-czarface","tag-czarface-meets-ghostface","tag-ghostface-killah","tag-hip-hop","tag-silver-age"],"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":false,"span_bottom":false},"number_of_votes":0,"sum_votes":0},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8GYHU-1Hw","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.surrealresolution.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/81WtNgpXA8L._SL1200_.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6542"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6552,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6542\/revisions\/6552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}