Ghostface Killah - GhostDeini The Great

This is the third release in a couple years from your boy Ghost. And it's not a mixtape (sorta). That's alarmingly prolific for a living hip-hop artist on a major in this day and age. This one happens to be one of the ever-popular releases with 'remixes' and new verses. It's pretty remarkable that Ghost has been able to drop that many in the Jay-Z-helmed Def Jam era. I guess if you're willing to release stuff and not have it be promoted at all, you can do ok over there.

Dropping comps like this makes sense in a lot of ways. No one this side of U2 sees album royalties, so if you can get a gang of cds to sell on the road and put all the money in your pocket, that's a pretty decent deal. In these times when quick, in-hand cash is the way of the walk, it's not bad to never get a royalty check when you're clocking 25K a night for a club date.

That said, GhostDeini? What the fuck is that about? I know it's from Supreme Clientele, but it was pretty silly back then, too. I guess I should take consolation in the fact that it's not being put forth as an acronym (Niggas On the Run Eating, really?), but it's really kinda stupid almost a decade on. Not that I'm dying to get chin-checked by Ghost like my name was Mason Betha, but the songs on here are good enough that they could have come up with something better than that. Didn't the Iron Man movie come out this year, for chrissakes?

That duly purged, GhostDeini The Great is pretty decent, especially for a major label contract-fulfiller. You get the Kilo remix with Rae and Pusha T and the absolutely essential Tony Segal (a.k.a Barrel Bros) with Styles P and Beanie Sigel. It being the holidays, you also get Ghostface Christmas for Yuletide cockle-warming. There are sixteen tracks in all, most of them keepers. Personally, I'd shit-can the Amy Winehouse collabo, but I guess it's a unit-shifter. There's also Cherchez La Ghost and the collabos with Kanye and Mary, for optimum cross-over goodness.

I can see this popping up in a lot of backpacker stockings this holiday season. Word to MC Jansport. As hip-hop records go, it's pretty consistently good and most, if not all, of the material is stuff you've probably heard before. If your record bag or I-tunes isn't already packed with Ghost acapellas and you're looking for a good Starks overview, you could do a lot worse than GhostDeini The Great.

R