By Odeisel

Adrian Younge and Ghostface Killas’s 12 Reasons to Die is a compact work that harkens back to that early Wu sound. Younge, in particular creates a soundscape that is eerily close to the early machinations of RZA at his most deliciously opaque. Ghostface delivers a tight storyline melding the Mafioso genre with the karate movies that colored Saturday afternoons of the late 70’s early 80’s.

The album comes in at an efficient 40 minutes and follows the narrative of a drug dealer who decides to strike out on his own and build his own empire, much to the chagrin of his mob handlers.

Beware of the Stare opens the album with Ghostface with an off-beat flow and basic rhyme schemes that are beneath his historic level of execution. The offbeat could be attributed to the mixing but that wouldn’t account for the pedestrian rhymes. The track, with its haunting wails does a solid of creating the pulp feel of the album, however. Rise of the Black Suits, with its sly, end measure piano riff ably chronicles the ascension of Ghost and his crew after The DeLuca Crew refused to make him a made man.

I Declare War finds Starks on top, adorned with jewels and drunk with money, power and hood respect. He declares war on his former bosses now that he has a new connect, and an all-out drug war ensues. The presence of RZA as narrator creates an added layer of cinema and fills in the storyline for those who can’t catch it from the rhyme. Blood on the Cobblestones quickens the pace as the war spills into the streets as “drive-bys and Molotovs settle the score.” U-God and Inspecktah Deck break up the monotony and deliver rugged but unspectacular verses.

A welcome breather comes with The Center of Attraction, whose intro acts as the transition. The slow burning track finds the protagonist falling for a vixen, to the dismay of Cappadonna who presciently warns that she was a setup chick. Unfortunately for the hero he fell for the jux and finds himself paranoid on the William Hart (the Delfonics) featured Enemies All Around Me. Ghostface does his best Tony Montana impression, complete with delusions of grandeur and suspicion of everyone around him…except his lady. Sadly for Starks, his dame turns him over to the DeLuca’s on An Unexpected Call (The Setup) which ends in our hero’s untimely demise. He is murdered and boiled in a vat of album wax and pressed into 12 records and given to the entire DeLuca clan.

All is not lost, as Tony Starks manages to outlast even death on The Rise of the Ghostface Killah. We won’t spoil the ending of the album for you but as in most tales of pulp fiction, the hero emerges triumphant.

12 Reasons To Die on surface is a strong concept with movie score as rap album. You would think that Ghostface Killah, one of the all-time supreme narrators of Hip-Hop would be primed and ready to go. Younge provides a familiar sonic backdrop that is both prototypically Wu and keyed in on cinematic sensibility, but it doesn’t quite gel. The album hovers beneath the sublime achievement of albums like Ironman, Supreme Clientele and even Younge’s stunning score for Black Dynamite but above some of Ghost’s recent solo material. 12 Reasons To Die is a courageous attempt that ultimately falls short of its ambition, but not so low as to not deserve a nod.

Out of 5

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