When Ghostface Killah originally made 2013’s Twelve Reasons To Die album with Adrian Younge, he also commissioned producer Apollo Brown for an alternate version of the project. That reworked rendition, The Brown Tape, was briefly released on cassette and other formats before disappearing. Now, Mello Music Group is bringing the project back in 2018.
The 11-track LP is scheduled to be re-released on January 26. The album is narrated by RZA with guest appearances by Masta Killa, Inspectah Deck, U-God, Cappadonna and Killa Sin. Pre-orders are available now on iTunes and Bandcamp.
Check out the cover art and tracklist for The Brown Tape below.
1. Beware of the Stare
2. Rise of the Black Suits
3. I Declare War f. Masta Killa & RZA
4. Blood on the Cobblestones f. U-God & Inspectah Deck
5. The Center of Attraction f. Cappadonna
6. Enemies All Around Me
7. An Unexpected Call f. Inspectah Deck
8. Rise of the Ghostface Killah f. RZA
9. Revenge Is Sweet f. Masta Killa, RZA & Killa Sin
On “Bulletproof Love,” Meth served up but one of the countless Hip-Hop facets to the Netflix juggernaut and now, a video has been released which co-stars Mike Colter, who plays Luke Cage. Meth spitting his verses sitting alongside Sway, the video captures some of the show’s most exciting elements including the nods to Biggie, Cage’s signature impenetrable hoodie, and the grit and grime of the series’ New York City backdrop.
Meth’s love for the super hero and the series itself, was enough motivation to get him to release his first song of the year. Could this be the sign of a possible Luke Cage soundtrack album in the future?
Part one of the Marvel’s Luke Cage Street Level Hero social video series explores the music that moves the show. These digital videos look to blend fiction with history by taking audiences behind the curtain on the themes that give the show it’s street-level authenticity and cultural relevance. Executive producer Cheo Hodari Coker, Mike Colter, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge of A Tribe Called Quest, A$AP Ferg and Method Man lend their commentary on how each episode is shaped by its score and musical influence.
In this Marvel live action series, a street-fighting ex-con battles crime on the streets of New York as the Super Hero, Luke Cage.
The Wu-Tang Clan has always embraced the cinematic, from its highly
referential debut album "36 Chambers" to RZA's 2012 martial arts film
"The Man with the Iron Fists." So it makes sense that Ghostface Killah
would drop a blockbuster sequel to his critically acclaimed 2013 concept
album, "Twelve Reasons To Die." This installment of the 70s mafioso
tale centers on the rise of black gangster Lester Kane, personified by
Raekwon, and also features RZA and rapper-of-the-moment Vince Staples.
One of the high points in my career as a journalist happened back in January, when I had the honor of chewing the fat with my hero and Wu-Tang Clan mastermind, the RZA. We were supposed to talk about a new Ghostface Killah album, featuring production from his protégé Adrian Younge, that RZA had executive produced and was going to drop on his then newly launched Soul Temple label. However, I hadn't heard the album yet. And I had only found out I was slated to conduct the interview a few hours before I had to show up, which I did out of breath and a little bugged out. I was also woefully underprepared—I even forgot to bring a camera, so I couldn't get a picture with Mr. Bobby Digital, something my entire family is still pissed at me about months later. Luckily, I did have my recorder, which was good. And I'm pretty sure I didn't smell, despite having sprinted to the interview in what felt like a coat made of whale blubber on a peculiarly warm day for the dead of winter.
The album we talked about, which I finally got a chance to listen to and love a month ago, is called Twelve Reasons to Die. It hit the streets at the end of April and features Ghostface spitting a fictional narrative that falls somewhere between The Candy Man and The Crow. You should really listen to the record for yourself, but basically it details how a black gangster named Tony Starks, who works for the Italian mob, becomes the Ghostface Killah, a phantom assassin who avenges his death every time a mysterious vinyl record is played. As would be expected, Ghost's rhymes are flawless, pulling you into a world where wronged gangsters can come back from the grave. But what's most surprising about the record is the production, which Adrian Younge laced with live instrumentation and throwback techniques. The beats sound like Sergio Leone scores and Delfonics ballads—the latter makes plenty of sense considering the standout track "Enemies All Around Me" features William Hart of the famed Philly soul group.
I would've dropped this impromtu interview with RZA and Adrian a lot sooner, but I was hoping to get another chance to connect with RZA and possibly Ghost after I had time to digest the album and add a perspective with some hindsight. I'm still waiting on that one, if only so I can snag a picture of myself with RZA or Ghost throwing up the W and make my father proud. (Wu-Tang, for retired dads living in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, really is forever.)
So here is an old interview with a rap legend and a rising hip-hop star that is still definitely worth reading a few months after it was conducted, especially if you're like me and you eat, sleep, and breath all things Shaolin. We talked about the collaborative process for Twelve Reasons to Die, what it's like working with Ghost, and how the Wu-Tang Clan are actually mutants.
VICE: So, Adrian, just to start off, how did you come up with the concept of Twelve Reasons to Die?
Adrian Younge: Initially, Bob Perry, co-owner of Soul Temple with RZA, hit me up to ask me if I’d like to do a Wu-Tang project. I’ve always composed from the RZA perspective. My concept was always, what would RZA do if he was a producer in the late 60s? So, when he hit me up about doing that project, I was like, OK, this is too good to be true. Then he hit me up a few weeks later and I was like, “Yo, you’re serious? All right. Then we have to figure out a concept to make this important to people.”
Why make a concept record?
Adrian: Whenever I’m creating, I ask myself why anyone should care. I figured if we came together and did something that was based on a story, it could turn into something more massive. I thought about it every day for a couple weeks and the story hit me. I planted the seed and the people around me helped to nurture the concept.
RZA: The concept is what attracted me to the project. I like to think conceptually when I make my music. When I see somebody producing in that same vein, I invest in that. You see a guy like Adrian, and you know that he has a future ahead of him.
Was there a moment in the process when you said, “Whoa, Ghostface is really putting his all into this?”
Adrian: I’m a hip-hop dude, but I generally say that I left hip-hop in '97. To me, at that time, it was making a shift I didn’t feel. I’m somebody who’s been trying to find a hip-hop album that gives me the same feeling the music did in '97. To finally hear it and to have been the one to produce it is incredible. Ghost exceeded my expectations, and I always expected him to come with it. That, in turn, inspired me to do more and make it even better.
Adrian records a lot on analog equipment. What do you think about that in terms of not sampling, but using organic instruments to create sounds that are reminiscent of samples?
RZA: Hip-hop started off from sampling certain parts of old records. The musicians who were making those old records weren’t coming from the hip-hop perspective. Now you have a new generation of people who’ve grown up on hip-hop, whether it was Wu-Tang or G-Funk or whatever. And they’re musicians, but they’re able to think in a hip-hop way. It’s great to see.
Has working with traditional musicians like Adrian showed you anything about yourself?
RZA: I noticed the stuff I sample on every album has an A-minor progression. That’s just what my ear is attracted to. I didn’t know it was an A-minor when I did it. But now now that we’ve got a producer like Adrian who is a musician, we can really attain the spirit that we want. And having all that old equipment is great. This guy is sitting on a lot of old toys. The only other people I’ve seen with that many old toys in the studio are the Black Keys. He’s able to create a sound that made those old records. I think it’s great for hip-hop.
Some might argue that what Adrian does isn’t hip-hop at all.
RZA: People think if we take the rappers off of a record, it won't be hip-hop anymore. But I disagree with that. Say this was just an instrumental. You’re going to hear that soul you’re looking for. If we come back to a generation of people who don’t become musicians because they’re using their Logics and their Abletons and they don’t get that musician part in life, they’ll use this record as their sample base. It will come full circle.
That’s an exciting thought.
RZA: Yeah, as a musician myself, it’s fun to see a someone who can execute those ideas so I don’t have to. It’s a big relief to me. It’s like being a great dancer and wanting to see someone do the most incredible spin that you were always working on, just because you want the world to see it too. You get to a point in life when you aren’t break-dancing anymore, you’re choreographing dancers in movies. But you see a young guy come and he does that fucking Triple Lindy that you dreamed about. That’s how I feel right now.
Adrian, as a hip-hop fan, why not sample?
Adrian: Hip-hop was started on the break. It’s about finding those breaks and those chords. I stopped sampling because my brain was going further than the chords. When RZA was doing his thing, he was finding all the ill breaks and creating weird changes that were syncopated and made sense. Now, I can make the entire sample myself and evolve it.
RZA: Right. And not just on the drum, but the music on top of the drum.
Adrian: Quincy Jones said that hip-hop mastered the drums. When I’m recording these drums, I record them as if they were made from the SP using different snares and different mics and different setups on the same songs. But it’s still all live. This process is pushing the musical and compositional component of a subculture and style of music that is dear to me.
Can you really go any further than where hip-hop has already been?
Adrian: Every generation declines. Hip-hop got to a point where it was getting better and better and it hit a pinnacle. Then it started to drop because it was getting into pop and becoming more of a dance thing. This record is something that takes it back to that passionate core.
You guys come from different generations of hip-hop. Was there something you learned from this experience that you didn’t know before the process?
Adrian: One of things I’ve done with music is study why musicians are the best. When I got a chance to meet RZA, I’d ask him some of those questions. But I already had the answers for what I thought he did. Sometimes I was right, sometimes I was wrong and my mind was blown. It’s like he was helping me to sculpt my future and mold my thought process when it came to finalizing shit. He’s had 20 years of experience with this. I have not. I’ve learned a lot just by upping my game.
RZA: For me, making music has been a lot about searching—searching for the right sample to get that bell, searching for a digital keyboard that can play certain sounds. But to go back to his studio and to see all the analog equipment that made those sounds, I learned that if you want a bell then buy a damn bell. You’ve got a fucking mic. I work with a digital orchestra and I enjoy it. It has its benefits. But if you want organic sounds, 90 percent of the time a computer isn’t going to generate that. Trying to make all this music with the older equipment showed me you can stick to the organic way. You don’t have to change because the equipment changed. You can still use that same old shit. You can still go down and get the same musicians. I knew that, but I forgot it, and Adrian reminded me.
You’ve been working with Ghostface for a long time. In terms of this project, did you see anything different come out in him as an MC?
RZA: Ghost is a dope MC—one of the dopest to ever touch the mic. But on this particular record, he reminded us that Ghost can get into any water and swim well. He killed it on the Kanye record. He killed it on the Wu-Block record. But on this one here, he kept a cohesive narrative. I don’t think he’s done that since Supreme Clientele. Even Supreme Clientele somewhere in the middle doesn’t hold the narrative. Cuban Linx was the first time a story was really kept all the way. It was Tony Starks and Lou Diamond and they were there all the way through. This is a return for him to a complete narrative from front to back... I’m going to give a quote about Ghostface that Quentin [Tarantino] said to me, “Two of the greatest writers in American music history are Bob Dylan and Ghostface Killah.”
Growing up listening to Wu-Tang as a young kid, I always looked at the different members of Wu-Tang as almost like comic-book characters. You all had such larger than life personas. Do you ever intend to tell the origin stories of other Wu characters you've helped create inside this universe?
RZA: As far as Wu and comic ideas, I’ve written something called Black Shampoo. In it, everybody’s a superhero and it touches on their own personalities. For example, everyone knows Meth is a weed smoker. In this story, some guys come and confront him at a table. They’re going to kill him. They’ve got guns pointed under the table. And he’s sitting there smoking this big blunt. The blunt flies across the table and knocks the guys back. That’s my imagination on how super he could be. Wu has always been something that’s real, but we always had this superhero idea about ourselves. That comes from when you you feel that you have the proper position in the world to be a supreme being. Or, instead of the supreme being, because there’s only one, the ability to be supreme amongst other beings. There’s a small part of me that says, “You know what, motherfuckers? We are mutants.” Think about it, Meth has smoked for 30 years straight and never been to the doctor for anything. Iron lungs, right? He must have iron lungs. Ghostface really has a ghost face. It’s hard to find him. It's like he disappears.
What was it like actually turning this album into a comic book?
RZA: The trick that a writer needs to understand is, when you’re dealing with hip-hop, you’re dealing with concentrated language. It’s like concentrated orange juice. You have to add cups of water to it. If I say, “Camouflage chameleon / ninja scaling your building / no time to grab the gun / they’ve already got your wife and children” within two lines, all this shit has happened already. To make this a story, they have to stretch that out to a ten-minute scene. That’s one of the secrets of writing from listening to hip-hop and hearing the story and being able to extract it out. But the writers were good. I like what they did. They took the story and instead of making it from just one point of view, they did something cinematic with it. They made it a parallel story.
Your music’s always been described as cinematic. Has the process of working on The Man with the Iron Fists changed your process in general?
RZA: It has impacted everything. That was like the final education. It was definitely a college-graduation thing for me. I have my PhD in art right now, thanks to that experience. But the final, ultimate test is, can you beat death? So far, nobody has beaten the ultimate test. That’s a test for your ass. But doing a movie definitely comes close.
RZA, any advice you want to give to MCs and producers out there who want to be the next RZA or Adrian Younge?
RZA: There’s no limit to artistic expression. You just have to find that wavelength and ride that wave all the way to the shore.
Thanks, Adrian Younge and Ruler Zig-Zag-Zig Allah!
Buy Twelve Reasons to Die the album and the comic.
Twelve Reasons to Die is a rap album that begins with an overture and ends with an instrumental coda. The songs were composed by Adrian Younge, a producer and musician who's fairly new to the scene, recorded live and authored by a rapper with 20 years in the business, the Ghostface Killah, a member of the Wu-Tang Clan. The result is unusual — a vivid and intricate melodrama both backward-looking and forward-thinking.
"It's the first time in my life I tried something like this," says Ghostface before his second-ever performance of this new material with Younge and his band, Venice Dawn. It's a surprising thing to hear from an artist of his longevity — and he has attempted many of the gambits on Twelve Reasons to Die before. He's done concept albums, made filmic songs, invented characters, performed with a band, played supporting and featured roles. But he's never had this type of working relationship with the tracks he's rhyming over — the music was wholly composed for this project, which was conceived as a story before anything else. It works like Tommy, if Ghostface is Roger Daltrey and Younge is Pete Townshend. "I'm a film composer," says Younge. "But I'm a hip-hop guy."
The Record
The Wu-Tang Clan's 20-Year Plan
As those involved tell it, the story came first, the music second and the lyrics last. Twelve Reasons to Die is the creation myth of a black superhero set in 1960s Italy, which looks a lot like 1990s Scorsese. The curtain opens on a young man born into a life of crime. But anyone familiar with Robert De Niro's characters in Goodfellas and Casino knows what's coming next when Ghostface's character rhymes, "I was a boss among white boys, rocking a 'fro." He hits the ceiling, leaves to start a black syndicate, falls in love with a boss's daughter and makes a ton of money importing cocaine. For these crimes, the criminal organization he came up in murders him and dumps his body in a vat of acetate. His former friends press 12 records from his remains, but when those records play, his vengeful spirit arises. Though he was rebuffed and disrespected in life, in legend the Ghostface Killah becomes immortal.
Twelve Reasons to Die has all the makings of a cult classic. Jangly, tumbleweed guitar that warms the cold-hearted comic book-style violence. Snyth stabs that evoke Bernard Herrmann's violin screeches in Psycho. William Hart's age-spotted tone reminding us of our own mortality and the planes where soul music and hip-hop meet. The drums are loud and high in the mix, driving when our hero readies for a fight, as on "Blood on the Cobblestones," uncomfortably tight just as he's betrayed during "An Unexpected Call (The Set Up)" and charged like a car chase while he tastes revenge on "Sure Snot (Parts One & Two)," the only song that could be a single.
The atmospherics and plot development fit right in with Wu-Tang albums of the past, most closely another Ghostface collaboration, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. And Wu-Tang associates appear here: the RZA most prominently, Cappadonna most memorably, Inspectah Deck most ably and Killah Priest carrying the most weight. From beyond the grave Ol' Dirty Bastard makes his presence felt — his introduction of Ghostface on 1993's "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'" reverberates on "The Rise of the Ghostface Killah." Ghostface says he went back to his Wu brothers because he needed veterans who know how to tell a story.
And Ghostface would know — he is a true writer. He's painterly and agile. His style is emphatic, and he takes every verse seriously. He bobs and weaves with the track, but he maintains a forthright and basically conversational sentence structure, which, when he's describing the ways he might murder your children, really twists the knife.
The mood of the album is fragile, and the whole project is a definite risk. Both Ghostface and Younge are making fictional music here, but the knife's edge they're walking — between theater and theatrics, between noir and B-movie — feels very real. That they make it across without falling is a relief and an eye-opener.
In the grand tradition of the Wu-Tang Clan, Twelve Reasons to Die is brash and Technicolor and heartfelt. It is not what you would expect from a rap album, or a Ghostface album, or a film score. As Ghostface says, on "Rise of the Black Suits," "Rules are for fools."
Wu-Tang Clan and The Roots together on the same stage last night on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Ghostface Killah, Masta Killa, Adrian Younge and Killah Priest performed "I Declare War" off of Ghostface's upcoming album, Twelve Reasons to Die.
The project will be available on April 16th. You can pre-order your copy now from iTunes.
Ready to give 'Twelve Reasons To Die' a listen. NPR has the exclusive First Listen to the album before it's available for sale. Click HERE to listen! Suuuu!
Ghostface Killah with Adrian Younge and his band, Venice Dawn, after
their first performance together. Ghostface Killah and Adrian Younge's
new album, Twelve Reasons To Die, comes out April 16.
TOUR DATES
03/28 Los Angeles, CA – Mayan Theatre
03/31 San Luis Obispo, CA – SLO Brewery
04/03 Fresno, CA – Fulton 55
04/04 San Francisco, CA – 1015 Folsom
04/05 Orangevale, CA – The Boardwalk
04/06 Redway, CA – Mateel Community Center
04/09 Eugene, OR – WOW Hall
04/10 Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios
04/11 Seattle, WA – Neumos
04/12 Spokane, WA – Knitting Factory
04/13 Boise, ID – Knitting Factory
04/16 Park City, UT – Park City Live
04/19 Denver, CO – Summit Music Hall
04/20 Aspen, CO – Belly Up
04/25 Lawrence, KS – Granada Theater
04/26 Chicago, IL – The Abbey Pub
04/27 St. Louis, MO – Cherokee Performing Arts Center
04/28 Cleveland Hts, OH – Grog Shop
04/30 Detroit, MI – St. Andrews
05/01 Grand Rapids, MI – The Pyramid Scheme
05/02 Bloomington, IN – The Bluebird
05/03 Columbus, OH – A&R Room
05/04 Pittsburgh, PA – Mr. Smalls Theatre
05/05 Syracuse, NY – The Westcott Theatre
05/07 South Burlington, VT – Higher Ground Music
05/08 Portland, ME – Port City Music Hall
05/09 Boston, MA – The Wilbur
05/10 New Haven, CT – Toads Place
05/11 Providence, RI – The Met
05/12 Philadelphia, PA – The Blockley
05/13 New York, NY – Gramercy Theatre
05/14 Baltimore, MD – Soundstage
05/16 Carrboro, NC – Cats Cradle
05/17 Asheville, NC – Asheville Music Hall
05/18 Atlanta, GA – Terminal West
05/19 Tampa Bay, FL – The Orpheum
05/20 New Orleans, LA – House of Blues
05/22 Austin, TX – Emos
It’s true, you can download 12 Reasons To Die when it hits iTunes and listen to it while looking at the song titles on a screen… but how exciting is that?
The answer: it’s not exciting at all. And so, to combat lame music listening, we offer you The Get On Down Way to experience Ghostface’s amazing new album.
In collaboration with RZA’s Soul Temple Music, we are proud to announce presales for two exclusive packages – the “12 Delucas Private Press Version” and the “12 Delucas Version” – both which offer unique and immersive Ghostface Killah 12 Reasons To Die experiences
12 Delucas Version
12 Delucas Private Press Version
Get On Down’s packaging is inspired by and was developed alongside the 12 Reasons To Die album and comic book (written by Matthew Rosenberg and Patrick Kindlon and illustrated by Ronald Wimberly).
Representing the at-times bloody story of Tony Starks (a soldier for the 12 Delucas crime family), the vinyl in these exclusive sets is appropriately gory – on blood red & clear mixed vinyl – bringing the theme to life vividly, while spinning at 33 1/3.
The comic book graphics and album artwork come to life in various ways throughout the “12 Delucas Version” packages: the vivid artwork on both LP jackets; the unique visuals adorning the box which holds all package elements, as well as the truly unique “Private Press” wood-block print; and through the images used on the exclusive two-sided poster.
Outer Box (Front & Back)
Birch Wood-panel print with unique 12 Reasons graphic (Private Press Version only) Available only on GetonDown.com.
Both “12 Delucas Version” sets give listeners a true “360” album experience, combining the physical / visual and aural – something which Get On Down proudly strands behind. To prove it (as if you needed further proof), Ghostface’s new opus is presented in three different audio formats – LP, CD and cassette. How can you get more complete than that?
- 2-LP with vocals & instrumentals, on blood red & clear mixed vinyl (Jackets screen-printed by AntiDesigns, with 12 Reasons comic book images) [www.GetOnDown.com orders only]
- 2-CDs with vocals & instrumentals (Japanese version of CD release) [www.GetOnDown.com orders only]
- Double-sided poster with cover and comic book art [www.GetOnDown.com orders only]
- 12 ½” x 12 ½” x 1 ¼” screen-printed outer box by AntiDesigns with unique 12 Reasons graphics [www.GetOnDown.com orders only]
- Cassette-only album by Apollo Brown, with remixes of each song on 12 Reasons album
- 12 Reasons to Die Vol. 1 comic book
NOTE: Get on Down “12 Delucas” bundle is limited to 400 copies worldwide
Cassette-only 12 Reasons to Die remix album by Apollo Brown. Available with the 12 Delucas Version.
- 12” x 12” x 1” wood-panel print with unique 12 Reasons graphic [Private Press Version only] [www.GetOnDown.com exclusive]
- Two 12” jacket running-sheet flat prints, on thick 20-point reverse board [Private Press Version only] [www.GetOnDown.com exclusive]
- Cassette of 12 Reasons To Die album (white cassette). Side A – vocal / Side B – instrumental. [Private Press Version only] [www.GetOnDown.com exclusive]
- 2-LP with vocals & instrumentals, on blood red & clear mixed vinyl (Jackets feature 12 Reasons comic book images) [www.GetOnDown.com exclusive]
- 2-CDs with vocals & instrumentals (Japanese version of CD release) [www.GetOnDown.com exclusive]
- Double-sided poster with cover and comic book art [www.GetOnDown.com exclusive]
- 12 ½” x 12 ½” x 1 ¼” screen-printed outer box by AntiDesigns with unique 12 Reasons graphic [www.GetOnDown.com exclusive]
- Cassette-only album by Apollo Brown, with remixes of each song on 12 Reasons To Die album
