Happy 15th Anniversary to Ghostface Killah’s sixth studio album More Fish, originally released December 12, 2006.
In the 2020s, some of my favorite artists put out multiple projects in a calendar year. Some two. Some three. Some have even cracked double digits. And many cases, most, if not all, of the material is extremely dope. In an age where “content” is king, a lot of the best out there have found a way to match their quality with quantity.
Fifteen years ago, a rapper like Dennis “Ghostface Killah” Coles putting out two releases in a little over six months was the exception rather than the rule. The Staten Island-born member of the Wu-Tang Clan was one of the best rappers of the time, but he usually took two to three years to put out albums. And in even in this case, it took somewhat special circumstances to release More Fish, his sixth long player.
As the title suggests, More Fish is mostly made up of material that didn’t make Fishscale, which Def Jam had released in the spring of 2006. The Pretty Toney Album (2004), Ghost’s first album on the imprint, had been very good, but it was obvious that the label had been pushing Tony Starks in directions that weren’t natural to him. Fishscale succeeded artistically because it better harnessed Ghost’s character and idiosyncrasies as an emcee.
Though Fishscale was a reasonable commercial success (moving 400,000 units was pretty solid 15 years ago), it wasn’t the platinum seller that Def Jam envisioned. More Fish seemed like an effort to bridge that gap. Besides songs that he left off Fishscale, Ghost included songs from his Theodore Unit crew and different versions of previously released material.
More Fish is a bit of oddity for its time. For many years, artists and labels effectively vaulted the songs that didn’t make an album. Usually if the audience heard unreleased material, it was in the form of “unofficial” vinyl compilations or CD-Rs put out years after the fact. A lot of that changed with the digital age, when it got a lot easier for listeners to get access to material that wasn’t supposed to be available for sale.
During this period, Wu-Tang related material held somewhat of a special appeal, especially in the case of Ghostface Killah, who seems prolific in his recording habits. For some, the material that didn’t make Bulletproof Wallets (2001) is as well-known as the material that did. Ghostface even had a precedent for releasing this sort of album, putting out Theodore Unit’s 718 (2004) through Navarre Records, which was made up of Pretty Toney Album outtakes and tracks by members of his collective.
More Fish is a sturdy collection. It’s not quite as strong as Fishscale, but it’s better than 718. It features some vintage Ghostface recordings that fit well into his body of work. Overall, it gives fans more of what Ghostface is great at delivering. It features a mostly different roster of producers than appeared on Fishscale. Fantom of the Beat (a.k.a. the UMC’s’ Haas G), Madlib, J-Love (Ghost’s tour DJ), Anthony Acid, and Madlib all contribute bangers, crafting tracks that could have easily fit in on the already sprawling previous installment.
Ghostface starts things off with “Ghost Is Back,” a cover of sorts of Eric B. & Rakim’s “Know the Ledge (Juice).” He raps over an instrumental of the original Bomb Squad produced track, effectively ushering in a “rebirth” of Ghostface on Def Jam. Starks rhymes with a determined ferocity that he only occasionally utilizes on record. “All you gotta do is lay in the dirt,” he announces. “We dug a hole and my guns weigh more, yo, than Gerald LeVert / With more blubber than a Ruben Studdard / I grease the pan with rhymes, and y’all can't believe it’s not butter.”
“Good” strikes a celebratory mood, as Ghostface offers up a horn-heavy club banger. Ghostface is in full flossed-out Tony Starks mode, envisioning himself as “David Blaine with a million chains, chilling in the staircase surrounded by killers.” He also gets assists from Trife Da God (who’s all over More Fish) and vocalist Mr. Maygreen. The latter has a powerful voice and some singing chops, so it’s surprising that he has recorded very little in the subsequent 15 years.
More Fish is at its best when Ghostface keeps things gritty, and the album features a number of his grimy, borderline abstract narratives. Ghostface explains the importance of keeping a gun on hand when travelling on “Outta Town Shit.” Over a piano-driven track by Lewis Parker, Ghost recounts, in minute detail, a dice game in Minnesota that turns deadly.
Madlib brings his messy aural chaos on “Block Rock,” sampling the wild guitar and keyboard blasts from “Dronsz” by German prog rock band Novalis. The backdrop is perfect for Ghost, as he describes his endeavors as a “silverback gorilla” holding the streets down. “We don't need your support, wack speech, or thought,” he boasts. “Just to rewind my shit when the tape cut off.”
“Alex (Stolen Script)” is one of those Ghostface songs that seems almost too bizarre to be real. Produced by MF DOOM (credited as Metal Fingerz), Ghost weaves an exhaustive, yet almost indecipherable narrative. If you can piece through all the digressions and in-depth back-stories, the track is a story of Alex, a ruthless drug dealer and killer, who also apparently wrote the original film treatment for Ray, including casting Jamie Foxx in the title role. However, when the script is surreptitiously stolen during a financing meeting at PF Chang’s, he calls in a whole team of goons to find the culprit. Even though I feel completely ridiculous writing all that out, it’s undeniably a highlight of Ghostface’s catalogue.
DOOM also produces the swirling cartoonish cacophony pf “Gunz ‘N’ Razors.” Ghost is joined by Trife, Cappadonna, and the underrated Killa Sin, each depicting surreal street escapades. “Street Opera” is one of the best hip-hop two generation team-ups ever, as Ghost teams with his actual son, Sun God. The two tag-team the soaring track, which Fantom of the Beats builds with of a loop from the breakdown of Michael Jackson’s version of “Ain’t No Sunshine.” Ghostface burnishes his criminal credentials, boasting, “I move from Philly to Dallas with true talent, like my name is T.O.”
Ghostface enlists some outside guests to assist him on More Fish. “Greedy Bitches” features a pretty dope verse by Wu-ally Redman (and considerably less dope appearance by Shawn Wiggs), rocking over a sample of Van Morrison’s “T.B. Sheets.” “Blue Armor” is a banging precursor to the Wu-Block (2012) project, as Ghostface partners with The Lox/D-Block’s Sheek Louch. The two kick some rugged and raw hip-hop shit, while Fantom of the Beats transforms John Farnham’s cheesy power-rock ballad “Innocent Hearts” into the hardest shit ever.
A quarter of the songs on More Fish don’t feature any verses by Ghostface. The best of these is “Miguel Sanchez,” a cinematic endeavor featuring Trife Da God and Sun God. The album also features two solo tracks by Shawn Wiggs. Of the two, “Pokerface” is the most interesting. It was clearly recorded in the midst of the post-Rounders poker explosion, during a time when ESPN would constantly broadcast the annual World Series of Poker events at all hours of the day. There are even a few bad Teddy KGB impressions.
Ghostface further stretches out More Fish’s runtime by including alternate versions of material that had appeared on other artists’ projects shortly before this album’s release. “Josephine” had first appeared a couple of months earlier on Hi-Tek’s Hi-Teknology 2 compilation, featuring verses from Ghost, Philadelphia’s Pretty Ugly, and singer Willie Cottrell (Hi-Tek’s father). The More Fish version features a more limited use of Cottrell (he just sings the hook), while Pretty Ugly is replaced with Trife. Fortunately, Ghostface’s heart-rending verse about a former fly girl ravaged by years of crack abuse remains intact.
The remixed version of “You Know I’m No Good” shifts the focus of the song from Amy Winehouse to Ghost himself. The song was originally recorded for Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black (2006), with Ghostface contributing the song’s final verse on that album’s bonus track. Winehouse’s powerful vocals still shine, but don’t overshadow Ghostface’s now central performance.
Ghostface revisits Fishscale’s first single “Back Like That” to close out More Fish. With new lyrics from Ghostface and additional verses from Kanye West and Ne-Yo, it serves as their take on a mid to late 1990s R&B remix. The song is a good reminder that Kanye wasn’t always a clown on the mic, as he initially channels Raekwon, then turns to his Late Registration styled boasts.
Ghostface would release Big Doe Rehab (2007) about a year later. I’m willing to bet that at least some of the album was made up of the last scraps of the Fishscale sessions. When given the resources and motivation, Ghostface is such a talented emcee that what he intended to be heard and what he intended to relegate within the vault are virtually indistinguishable.
Ghostface’s recording habits have become more prolific as of late. Between late 2018 and 2019, he released three projects. Early in 2021, he announced that he planned to release as many five projects during the year, but with December here, that really doesn’t look likely. Regardless, More Fish showed that giving fans more Ghostface than they were expecting wasn’t a bad thing, especially since he had the skills to make it worth their while.
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