Art by Alex Wright
Zilla Rocca wrote this while wearing a Bane mask.
“The climax of every rap song is the beginning” – Barry Schwartz
One of the overlooked facts as to why Supreme Clientele is the best album of this century is that there are three songs on the album under 2 minutes.
Four years before Madlib and DOOM showed you can make a full length classic with half the tracklist under 120 seconds, Ghostface’s work on “Saturday Nite” (1:39), “Stay True” (1:39), and “Stroke of Death” (1:56) are just as memorable as “One,” “Mighty Healthy,” and “Child’s Play.” Like his fellow masked man DOOM, having the best rapper on the planet explode with crazy urgency over wild beats in short bursts is living out GZA’s manifesto: Half short, twice as strong. Ironically, the songs from the fabled DOOMSTARKS album are all over 2 minutes and 13 seconds.
>Ghostface is such a master at album arrangement, and my belief is that he specifically does short songs as interludes and bridges between longer, more “traditional” songs. But by themselves, they’re just as potent as four minute odes to Wallabee’s, ’70s cartoons, and throwing human beings off airplanes (’cause cash rules).
Four of the best story raps in Ghost’s catalogue are under two minutes (“Beauty Jackson,” “Underwater,” “Keisha’s House,” and “Saturday Nite”). The best song on the retail version of Bulletproof Wallets is under 2 minutes (“Street Chemistry”). One of the few true solo songs on Ironman is a hare over two minutes (“Poisonous Darts” is 2:16).
With this mix, I arranged it like a new Ghostface album. You get the ’80s breakbeat jams to highlight Ghostface’s roots as MC Ultra rhyming in the parks. You get dusted Ghostface. You get Trife Diesel. You get goofball romantic tales next to cocaine deals gone wrong. You get Ghostface blowing up the bathroom watching a Mike Tyson fight. You get the best rapper from 1996-2006 casually tossing out the best shit ever as hor d’oeuvres.
Download:
MP3: Ghostface Killah is the 120 Second Assassin: A Mix by Zilla & Earoh (Left-Click)
