Fishscale album cover
Fishscale

Ghostface Killah

2006
Def Jam Recordings

Tony Starks’ career could be wildly unpredictable post-Supreme Clientele, whether it was through bad luck (Bulletproof Wallets and its butchery at the hand of sample clearance issues) or just overloaded expectations (like every album that followed this one). But Fishscale holds a place in the Solo Ghost Holy Trinity because it finds him in this odd space between mainstream and underground that the Wu-Tang in general and Ghostface in particular always felt comfortable in. The de rigeur coke-trade chic and luxury-brand-name exotica of the ’00s are run through with more idiosyncratic reflections on childhood beatings (“Whip You With A Strap”) and Motor Booty Affair-goes-spiritual below-sea epiphanies (“Underwater”). And the producers on this — Just Blaze, Pete Rock, J Dilla, and a litany of jaw-droppers from MF DOOM — are brought into a world that Ghost made nuanced and experienced enough to have it all make sense.

Nate Patrin

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