Ghostface Killah & Apollo Brown - The Brown Tape (Mixtape)

Stream or download Ghostface Killah and Apollo Brown's new mixtape "The Brown Tape" featuring Masta Killa, U-God, Inspectah Deck, Cappadonna, and Killa Sin.

Ghostface Killah & Apollo Brown Announce "The Brown Tape" Re-Release

When Ghostface Killah originally made 2013’s Twelve Reasons To Die album with Adrian Younge, he also commissioned producer Apollo Brown for an alternate version of the project.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

10.Murder Spree f. Masta Killa, U-God & Killa Sin

11. The Sure Shot (Pt. 1 & 2)

[via HipHopDX]

Martin Shkreli May Have Paid $2 Million for a Wu-Tang Album That Isn't Actually a Wu-Tang Album

Since winning Wu-Tang Clan’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin with a $2 million bid in an auction two years ago, Martin Shkreli has done just about everything to remind us that he's the one in possession of the most expensive album ever sold. 

After promising to release the album if Donald Trump won the presidential election last November, Shkreli played a few snippets during a live stream. In one of the clips on a YouTube account called "Best of Martin Shkreli," ten minutes of Shaolin is playingin the background of an interview. But, in a surprising twist, two people linked to the Wu-Tang Clan told Bloomberg through their respective managers that the 31-track double CD in Shkreli's possession may not really be a Wu-Tang album. 

“It’s not an authorized Wu-Tang Clan album,” Domingo Neris, manager of rapper U-God, claimed. "It never was.” Method Man's manager James Ellis also questioned whether Shaolin was a true Wu-Tang album. "When we did the verses, it was for a Cilvaringz album," he said. "How it became a Wu-Tang album from there? We have no knowledge of that."

Killa Sin, a member of Wu-Tang's extended family, recalls recording sessions with producer Cilvaringz in New York, but he never got the impression that he was working on a Wu-Tang album. "The way he presented it was it was going to be basically his album, and he wanted me to do some work for him," Killa Sin said. 

With so many people questioning the validity of the $2 million album, Shkreli must have heard it back to front in order to confirm that what he spent so much money on was the real deal, right? Well, when he put the album on eBay earlier this month, Shkreli wrote in the description, "I have not carefully listened to the album."

[via COMPLEX]

Wu-Wednesday: First Listen: Ghostface Killah And Adrian Younge, 'Twelve Reasons To Die'

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."

Method Behind The Scene of Man Video Shoot With Hanz On (Ice H20 Inc)

Who wants a solo album from Kinetic 9 (Killarmy)

Beretta 9 aka Kinetic 9 from the legendary Killarmy is speculating on releasing a solo project. He wants the fans to decide if in 2012 they would buy a solo project from him. A great producer as well as lyricist (as evident in his large list of discography), this question should not be difficult to answer, show your support or feedback by going to Kinetic's Facebook and leave a "like" or live a comment.

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