Album Of The Week: Ghostface Killah 36 Seasons

The first time I interviewed Ghostface Killah, I waited four hours at the "Back Like That" video shoot for a 10-minute sit-down. This was mostly OK. I got to see the rap-promotions machine in action just before that machine rusted into dust. I got to see Ghostface and Ne-Yo standing on flowerpot risers on the roof of a Jersey City apartment complex so that they could strike poses for a crane shot in front of the New York skyline. I got to meet Ne-Yo, who was extremely pleasant. Dave 1 from Chromeo waited the same amount of time to interview Ghost for Vice, and I talked to him for maybe 15 minutes without recognizing him as the guy from Chromeo. (Mostly, I just wondered why the Vice guy was so well-dressed.) At one point, a Wu-Tang associate told me that the crew needed the article I was working on to be "a good one," made a veiled threat, and then offered to send a girl to my apartment if they liked the article. (I politely declined.) At another point, a bunch of Ghost's Theodore Unit guys decided they wanted me to interview them, so they grabbed my tape recorder, and this lunacy happened. Even with all that going on, though, I had a lot of time to kill. At one point, I was slumped at a table, reading a comic book and trying not to take up too much space. (I think this is when Marvel's Civil War was going on, so it was probably one of those.) I heard a voice from above me: "Hey man, what you reading?" I looked up, and Ghostface Killah was standing over me, looking down at my comic book with benign interest. He was wearing a purple bathrobe and a white durag and probably 30 pounds of gold jewelry. He was even bigger than he looks on TV. I may have actually gasped. This was basically like Indiana Jones leaning over your shoulder and asking you about the Warhammer figurine you're painting. It just about made my brain break.