Tracks 7 and 8 from Bulletproof Wallets (2001)

Tracks 9 and 10 from The Pretty Toney Album (2004)

Tracks 11 and 12 from Fishscale (2006)

Track 18 from Twelve Reasons To Die with Adrian Younge (2013)

Track 19 from 36 Seasons (2014)

Track 20 from Sour Soul with BadBadNotGood (2015)

Track 21 from Twelve Reasons To Die II with Adrian Younge (2015)

Track 22 from Czarface Meets Ghostface with Czarface (2019)

Ghostface Killah wasn't as immediately a solo star to the degree of other Wu-Tang guys like Method Man and ODB, but his standout performances on Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... set up Ironman to do well. I remember liking the "Daytona 500" video because it was all cut together from scenes from "Speed Racer," but because of that and Ghost not having the first verse on that song, I don't think I really knew him by his face or his voice until the "Triumph" video. But Ghost was the only Wu-Tang guy whose sophomore album generated more excitement than his debut, and Supreme Clientele still really holds up as one of the greatest rap albums from the whole crew, from the era, whatever. 

Much as Ghostface's name and face were on the covers of Cuban Linx and Cuban Linx... Pt. II, Raekwon is on the cover of Ironman and Bulletproof Wallets, really an unusual arrangement in the history of rap that totally works, two guys who never made a record as a 50/50 duo but co-piloted each other's albums several times. I didn't even plan it out this way, but this playlist has 6 songs featuring Raekwon, just like my Raekwon playlist had 6 songs featuring Ghostface. 

Bulletproof Wallets is one of those albums that was hamstrung by sample clearances and red tape, and was actually released with the wrong tracklist on the back cover, and some great leaked songs were missing or changed on the final release. So everyone always laments that it could've been a better album, but it's still got great stuff on it, it was fun to cherrypick standout tracks. Then Ghostface signed to Def Jam and really became a workhorse of their roster with 6 albums in 7 years. His consistency dropped a little in that time, but he still made a lot more great music outside the group than any other member of Wu-Tang. The storytelling tracks especially became his strong suit, "The Hilton," "Shakey Dog," and "Yolanda's House" are some of my favorites. 

"One" features Ghostface sort of talking back to the vocal sample in the beat, something that was kind of new at the time that was done more famously on Jay-Z's The Blueprint a year later. In fact, Kanye West and Just Blaze have said that a lot of their beats for The Blueprint were made with Ghostface in mind, which makes a lot of sense in retrospect. And of course Kanye later sampled "Mighty Healthy" on "New God Flow." 

Ghostface has done some cool collaborative projects later in his career, and the records with Adrian Younge and BADBADNOTGOOD are some of his most popular post-Def Jam albums. Younge does some interesting stuff with time signatures and "Beware of the Stare" and "Death's Invitation" are both very rare examples of hip-hop beats in 5/4. Inspectah Deck, as I mentioned before, is probably my favorite Wu-Tang rapper who never made a classic as a solo artist, and more recently he's done good work with the group Czarface, including a collab album with Ghost. Last year's Supreme Clientele 2 isn't nearly as close to the original in quality as Cuban Linx... Pt. II was, and Ghostface's voice is finally starting to really age, but it has its moments.