Happy 20th Anniversary to Ghostface Killah’s third studio album Bulletproof Wallets, originally released November 13, 2001. (Note: select sources cite November 20, 2001 as the album’s official release date.)
Bulletproof Wallets is pure Ghostface Killah, an unvarnished look into the psyche of Dennis Coles. Other albums of his may be better, but few have captured Tony Starks’ vision like his third project.
Released 20 years ago, Bulletproof Wallets arrived close to two years after Supreme Clientele (2000). I’m on record regarding my thoughts on Ghostface’s sophomore effort: It’s the best album of the ’00s and one of the best albums of all time. It’s the album that really unleashed his unbridled energy and wild, vivid imagination. It captured fans’ excitement like few Wu projects had done since their initial mid-1990s push.
Supreme Clientele was overseen by RZA, who, by all accounts, was integral in helping Ghostface pick beats and sequence the album. Though RZA is still an executive producer on Bulletproof Wallets, it feels more like a product of Ghostface’s mind. It’s genuine and vibrant in a unique way. Ghostface tries and succeeds at lots of things here that you wouldn’t have imagined when it was released two decades ago, effortlessly shifting gears but still sounding like a classic Wu-Tang release.
Full disclosure: In my mind, I’ve completely melded the “original” version of Bulletproof Wallets that I first heard with the “official” version that was commercially released. The first time I heard Bulletproof, it was from an advanced press copy of the CD, and that iteration of the project is fairly different from what hit the shelves. This is partially because the “official” version was marred by sample clearance issues, which effected both songs on the album and tracks that were intended to appear on it but were pulled at the last minute, even after the album’s liner notes were printed. Yes, it’s confusing.
Which was another issue with the release: the sequencing of the “official” album didn’t match what was on the liner notes. That of course, made a confusing experience for some listeners, especially when songs listed within the liner notes didn’t appear at all. It also irked some “in the know” hip-hop heads that some versions of the songs were different than what they’d heard months before.
Bulletproof came out during the dying days of Napster and the rise of file sharing services like LimeWire and Audio Galaxy. This meant more and more people got access to everything that was intended to be on albums, as well as tracks that appeared on mixtapes, easier and earlier. And when some of these tracks were absent, it made Bulletproof seem like a let-down to some.
In my opinion, Bulletproof Wallets is still a pretty damn amazing album. When it comes to beats, Ghostface leans heavily on RZA and other Wu-Affiliates, as well as then rising stars like The Alchemist and past collaborators like Carlos Broady. He also enlists a few beat-makers who specialize in music outside of the hip-hop genre. It features frequent guest verses from members of the Wu Family, as well as Ghostface’s Theodore Unit off-shoot.
The main appeal of Bulletproof is Ghostface’s rhymes. He’s every bit of the dynamo that he was on his earlier albums, but he is strangely and simultaneously more grounded and weirder.
In an interview with Vulture around the time of Supreme Clientele’s 20th anniversary, Ghostface revealed there really wasn’t much rhyme or reason to some of the album’s most beloved tracks. “I just wanted to use some words that sounded good with each other and everybody’s trying to decipher what I mean,” he explained, “when, really, I don’t even know what it means because I had no beat.”
It’s not accurate to say Bulletproof is more “focused” than Supreme, but Ghostface relies more heavily on creating hyper-real narratives. This is the project where Ghost honed his skill at seemingly telling a straightforward story, while frequently throwing in what comes close to non sequiturs.
Take a track like “Maxine,” which sonically unfolds like a classic Only Built 4 Cuban Linx (1995) or Iron Man (1996) team-up between Ghostface and Raekwon. It’s a vivid story-rhyme about cocaine-addicted friends Pam and Maxine who get caught stealing money from Mooney, the former’s drug-dealing boyfriend. Mooney discovers the theft and breaks down the door to Pam’s apartment in the projects, with bloody revenge on his mind. He’s eventually felled by a pot of boiling grits and a mass assault by Pam’s young children.
The little details that both Ghost and Raekwon sprinkle into their verses add to both the track’s authenticity and surrealness. For example, Ghost makes sure to note that Pam is under the watch of the Bureau of Child Welfare and that Maxine has a “friend cop” who she hopes will protect them. As the kids swarm to attack, Raekwon is sure to include that they were watching Knight Rider. The best detail is Mooney’s quizzical utterance of “Word?” just before the children push him out of the window to his death. The song is an absolute work of art.
“The Hilton” is another piece of arresting and ridiculous team-up storytelling with Ghostface and Raekwon. Here, both emcees foil an assassination attempt on their lives at the nominal hotel, then have to figure how to surreptitiously escape without causing alarm to the establishment’s management. Rae later describes their attempts to kill the person who tried to set them up. Again, the little details add to the track’s bizarre drama.
Bulletproof Wallets notably featured Ghostface’s first real dalliances with contemporary R&B on his own releases. Tony Starks has long professed a deep and abiding love for R&B music, both old and new, and pulls off something that I didn’t think was possible. My dislike for hip-hop love songs, particularly those with R&B singers on the hooks, is well-documented. Less documented is my general distaste for most late ’90s/early ’00s radio-friendly R&B. But damn if Ghost doesn’t kick ass combining both on “Never Be the Same Again,” Bulletproof’s first single.
The song, featuring Raekwon and Bad Boy singer Carl Thomas, shows Ghostface struggling with the pain of discovering that his girl cheated on him. Pain and frustration reverberate through both of Ghost’s verses, as he tries to process her infidelity after all the love they shared. The sharp contrast between the aggression in both Ghost and Rae’s verses with Thomas’ earnest tones and the syrupy, synth-heavy track by Lilz somehow makes the track even greater. Ghost grapples with accepting that he got played, as he raps, “It’s alright tho, maybe he came up with the right dough / Bigger dick, I don't know, must have been the best flow / This thing here, ever man in the world goes through / But fuck that! I put a lot of money up, I’m hating!”
“Love Session,” featuring R&B duo and Epic Records labelmates Ruff Endz, is a more straight-ahead love song. It’s not quite as strong, but it isn’t as bad as about 85% of its predecessors. Ghostface would continue to embrace the smoother R&B stylings for the rest of the ’00s, culminating with Ghostdini: Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City (2009), his full-on contemporary R&B album. I have never particularly been a fan of Ghostdini…, but it’s a project that Starks continues to champion.
Ghostface fully leans into his classic soul proclivities with “Walking Through the Darkness.” The song is re-purposed version of a track by the same name sung by Tekitha on the Ghost Dog soundtrack (2000). The Wu-vocalist had already blessed many endeavors by The Clan and its affiliates and was given a full-length song on the RZA-produced soundtrack, crooning over a sample of the intro to Bobby Womack’s theme to Across 110th Street.
But whereas the original recording was a solemn hymn to the solitude of the Ghost Samurai character, Ghostface transforms it into an anthem dedicated to getting wild. He assumes the role of a white-collar office worker, frustrated by the drudgery, and ready to cut loose for the weekend and catch a Ghostface show. In between verses, he acts as the head DJ for 777 Ghost Radio and unleashes some disco-era call-and-response chants.
“Ghost Showers,” the album’s second single, functions as the sequel to Supreme Clientele’s “Cherchez LaGhost.” Much like “Cherchez LaGhost” was inspired by Dr. Buzzard and the Original Savannah Band’s “Cherchez La Femme,” “Ghost Showers” is inspired by Dr. Buzzard’s song “Sunshower.” In an extra “easter egg,” “Sunshower” actually follows “Cherchez…” on the tracklist for the funk disco group’s eponymous album.
As for Ghostface’s rendering, “Ghost Showers” doesn’t quite capture lightning in a bottle the same way as “Cherchez LaGhost” did, but it’s still a highly entertaining, upbeat hip-hop dance track. Producer Chris Liggio blends the spritely disco groove from the original song with elements from Biz Markie’s “Something For the Radio.” Madam Majestic returns to re-interpret “Ghost Showers’” original lyrics, but this time, Ghostface holds down the rapping duties on his own. He struts through the track draped in Liberace robes, dropping lines like, “Star-spangled up and my chain got cuts / Mr. T looked, saw my shit and went nuts.”
Aside from RZA, a relatively young Alchemist shares the second-most production credits on Bulletproof Wallets. “The Forest” features more of Ghost’s surreal storytelling, functioning as his version of Ice Cube’s “Gangsta’s Fairytale” or Coolio’s “Ghetto Cartoon.” Ghost strolls the nominal forest, and either envisions or encounters classic animated characters wreaking havoc in a cartoon ’hood. The commercial version of the album is missing Ghost wailing his own reinterpreted version of “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow.” Fortunately, his and Rae’s a capella off-key rendering of “What a Wonderful World” during that song’s intro is left intact.
Alchemist’s other entries, “The Juks” and “Street Chemistry” are two solidly serviceable Wu-Tang Clan/Theodore Unit posse cuts, many of which appear throughout the album. Allah Mathematics, the Clan’s DJ and logo designer, produces a pair himself. The string-heavy “Strawberry” is distinctive for its drastic shifts in tone and subject matter. Killarmy’s Killa Sin first relates a gritty crime story, while Ghostface describes his failing effort to not climax while having sex with the neighborhood hottie. “Theodore” stands out through its stark production aesthetic, as Mathematics throws some solid drums behind the chimes of a music box.
“Flowers,” produced by RZA, is particularly dope, but was straight-up sabotaged by sample clearance issues. In its original incarnation, RZA takes a little-used string and chime section from Bob James’ version of “Take Me to the Mardi Gras,” while Ghostface and guests deliver verses at a break-neck pace. For the commercial version, RZA attempts to replay the portion of the loop, and inadvertently sucks out all of the song’s energy. Even with a limp beat, the verses by Ghost, Raekwon, Method Man, and Superb are all dope. “Eating raw style like flounder,” Raekwon raps. “Fucking with mine or how we design? My n****s might find ya.”
Ghostface spends a decent amount of time on Bulletproof Wallets talking directly to inanimate objects. “Ice” packs a whole lot of lyrical heat into literally a minute, as Ghostface, in full floss mode, excoriates his jewelry for being too shiny and endangering the health of others. “You switch up, last week you burned an old lady’s retina,” he raps. “I thought them thick Coke bottle jammies might protect her / But it didn’t, Pah, The lady's blind and it’s all your fault / It went down to jury court and you walked.”
“The Watch,” which technically didn’t make the album, is also thoroughly entertaining. Here Ghostface gets into a contentious argument with his literal watch, sometimes voiced by Raekwon. Ghostface confronts his own doubts as an artist, as the diamond-encrusted timepiece mocks him for having less clout than DMX or Jay-Z. Ghost’s impassioned soliloquy of trash-talking near the end of the track is one of his most entertaining moments on the mic. Unfortunately, their inability to clear the sample of Barry White’s “I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little Bit More Baby” prevented the song from appearing on Bulletproof.
“Good Times,” which graced the mixtape circuit for months, is another glaring omission, but an understandable one. As dope as the song is, clearing a prominent sample of the theme song to the groundbreaking sitcom was always going to be impossible. It’s still a shame that some of Ghostface and Raekwon’s best tag-team chemistry has never been released commercially.
“The Sun” is one of the most infamous unreleased hip-hop tracks of the 21st century. It features Ghostface, Raekwon, and Slick Rick paying homage to the Earth’s source of heat, light, and life. The song was originally intended as Bulletproof Wallets’ lead-off entry and is even listed as such on the initial printings of the album. In a video interview with XXL, Ghostface explained its absence from the project, which boils down to, once again, sample clearance issues. “RZA got high and couldn’t find the fucking loop,” Ghost said. “He couldn’t find where he got the sample from. That’s why it wasn’t on there.”
Though RZA’s lack of sobriety may well have prevented “The Sun” from gracing the album, I’m pretty sure Ghostface and Raekwon were blasted out of their minds when they recorded their verses. “Yo, the sun could never be pussy, he always come out,” Ghostface muses. “He’ll sit right there, even if you pull your gun out.”
Bulletproof Wallets didn’t perform as well commercially as Ghostface and Epic hoped, and it turned out to be his last album with the label. Fortunately, the lack of sales wouldn’t hurt Ghostface’s career, as he’d sign with Def Jam soon after. As I’ve written about in the past, Ghost’s Def Jam output has its own issues, but I think that, when given the opportunity, he followed Bulletproof’s model to guide the rest of his career. This album may not have come out as Ghostface intended, but it still has a dizzying potency missing from a lot of the releases from that era.
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