*****

questlove's top 10 list why ghostface's bulletproof wallets is 2001's best hip hop album.

1. the nerve of him rhyming to unquatized loops. sounds like when chuck d would tell me that they would load samples into the machine, and just loop em by hand cause they aint feel like sequencing them. just loops, no 808.....no drum machine to beef up the sound. just the loop.

2. the nerve of him straight up rhyming to a record. just putting the motherfucker on and rhyming over the whole joint. over the lyrics the bridge, and the classic morphing the lyrics of what the singer sings into what he wants to say. classic

3. leave it to ghost to go into character of every character he throws into his story. but not just go into character. BUT GO INTO CHARACTER. i'm now convinced that ghost is porky pig, the big bad wolf, maxine the crackhead, the sun, his boy who got shot, and the bullet who shot his boy, and the 6th member of the dramitics.

4. good times chopped in the 1200. not the disco classic. THE TV THEME. nuff said.

5. the genius of him pulling a coup by making his 106th and park entry a song good enough to make the wall st. buppy cop his shit only to wonder later what the fuck did i just purchase?

6. highly effective use of a live drummer who is not me.

7. the disco call (whoop! whooop!). as a chorus.

8. a love song to of all friggin things....the solar system?

9. the insight to use the alchemist to fine ass effect. perhaps there is room for an eleventh spot in my all time holy tenity (pete, prim, jay, beatnuts, sermon, dre, timb, tunes, madlib, rza) if he keeps this up.

10. the starks metaphores. need i say more crab soup apron stain?


really in all seriousness. this is what kool keith wishes to give to the hip hop nation. just like ghost's labelmate mike's first challenge was topping off the wall when making thriller, ghost easily outdoes supreame clientel. if he tops this shit. then i will have to resort to doing weed and ex so that i too may soar high with my creative powers. this is tied with "cuban" as the best wu solo effort simply because "cuban" was a HARDER album. wheras this album is as vulnerable as any wu member has ever gotten. if 36 is the karate album; cuban is the retired dealer album; return to 36 the alcohol album; nigga please the crack album; liquid swords, the marvel comics album; and forever the "into the great wide open" album, then bulletproof is the ecstasy album. not saying that they partook in the popular activity with hip hop's newest flintstone chewable. but the vulnerable evidence is writen all over the place: first the maturity and restraint of him not being the "bigger dick" in "never be the same again" really challenges me to think that this is not the author of ironman's "wildflower". and to hear him as a 30 year old go back to his 8 year old black and white tv experiences, recalling every kiddy show character in such a breathless pace that you might miss my man droopy taking his shahada on "in the forrest". not to mention the "fuck what my nigga's think" disco jam "walking through the darkness" as he does the radj and tom willis hustle. (i had same thoughts on "geto heaven 2", so i guess that means he too will get roasted round here....and if not? i will be the first to yell and post DICKRIDER to all y'all "hip"o crits :) . broadway crooning, satchamo singing...all the works. this album is like a kid who plays in his food while rocking his sunday best when ma is looking the other way. i think if dirty was on e instead of what he was on, this woulda made nigga a less depressing listen despite critics praising it for it's "freedom".

back in the day, albums like this were dropping out the sky like manna from heaven. nowadays it is far and few between. but once in a while some shit drops and it takes my back to my teenhood. damn

there's no place like home.