Milestones: Supreme Clientele by Ghostface Killah
Ghostface Killah set the tone for the new millennium in hip-hop with the release of his second album.
Jesus, Yeezus loves Ghostface Killah and deliberately adopted the style of Supreme Clientele for his legendary JAY-Z beats. Bam! Milestone status: check. But more on that later. Let’s approach this unique album in the old-fashioned way: Shaolin style, so to speak.
“In the new millennium cities, watch what I do/I’m bout to save hip hop like Ghost did the Wu.”
OG Freddie Foxxx has always kept one ear to the street, and in 2000 he picks up the signs of the times in the track “RNS Real Nigga:” Ghostface, aka Tony Starks, aka Iron Man, shoulders the heavy backpack sinking to the bottom of the Hudson River at the turn of the millennium all by himself, and with his second album, Supreme Clientele, he hauls the kung-fu cart out of the mud.
To do so, he mixes totally off-the-wall lyrics, soul-bap bangers in a gritty New York guise, likable braggadocio, Iron Man references, jagged-sawing hooks, beats that loop a single scratch, and conversations about bedding all the women in the rap game into a wild, yet strangely coherent-tasting cocktail.
But why did the Wu even need saving back then? For us Wu-heads, Mastermind RZA and company ran the world. Wu World Order and all that. Even every C-level rhyme from the family was still celebrated in the seventh year after 36 Chambers like the mafia godfather’s birthday party on Staten Island. Objectively speaking, though, 1999 releases like Raekwon’s Immobilarity, Inspectah Deck’s Uncontrolled Substance, or U-God’s Golden Arms Redemption couldn’t withstand the pressure set by those first solo records (exceptions like Sunz of Man or LA the Darkman prove the rule).
So there we were in our car, deaf, dumb, and blind, self-assuredly flaunting our Wu tattoos to songs like “Dat Gangsta” or “Show N Prove.” Ruff Ryders, Rawkus—completely irrelevant. But instinctively, even the stanniest Stan—meaning me, myself, and I—already sensed the ongoing loss of importance by the end of 1999. Then Apollo Kids dropped.
Three years after his Ironman debut, good old Ghost had been sharpening his “Poisonous Darts,” and on that first single, he kicks off the modest comeback appropriately fired-up: “All y’all fake motherfuckers up in the joint, huh/Stealin’ my light, huh.” From the very first lines, it’s clear: Ghost isn’t dabbling—he’s going big. In the video, he shows up at the Wallabees factory in a Bling Bling bathrobe and finally straps on every championship belt like Floyd Mayweather.
Pimp, player—if you turned the sound off, you’d think Master P and the No Limit craze had the Wu wrapped around its pinky ring. With sound on, however, the Staten Island emcee flows everyone else into the ground while driving the fans out of their minds: “Since the face been revealed, game got real/Radio been gassing niggas, my imposters scream they’re ill/I’m the inventor, ’86 rhyming at the center/Debut ’93 LP told you to enter.” Meanwhile, Hassan’s beat crackles and funks its way wide-legged through Solomon Burke’s “Cool Breeze.”
That Ghost’s ingenious partner Raekwon appears right at the end of “Apollo Kids” is something even die-hard Killa Beez tends to forget. The Killah’s return to the game is just too dominant here, and for the first time, Ghost fully stands on his own two feet. Boogie Down legend Sean Price described this development in a detailed Complex article in 2012 as one of the main reasons behind the success and classic status of Supreme Clientele:
“Ironman was Ghostface featuring Raekwon, so it sounded like Cuban Linx Part II. On Supreme Clientele, Ghost took his skills to a new level. I think he just wanted to rap everybody else against the wall.”
That’s exactly what he did when the record dropped in February 2000. “Swing the John McEnroe, rap rock’n’roll/Tidy Bowl, gun hold pro, Starsky with the gumsole/Hit the rum slow, parole kids, live Rapunzel”—even the nerdiest fans need hours to decipher the lines of opener “Nutmeg” fully. The energy in his flow feels otherworldly, yet somehow, you sense exactly what Tony’s rhyming about.
That the obscure producer Black Moes-Art—vigorously supported by the RZA, who puppeteers the album’s sound strings throughout—lays down the 2013 loop blueprint for Alchemist and Roc Marciano with his chop-up of Eddie Holman’s “It’s Over” is practically a footnote given all that mic magic.
Things get even crazier in the following “One,” where the Wu savior storms the booth. While Beatnuts’ Juju programs are straightforward, clear piano head-nodder, Ghost flicks through syllables and slang editorials as if “Fischers Fritze” were fishing fresh fish in English. Sean Price is left gaping: “That verse is dumb, and that flow is crazy.” Immediately after, Bad Boy’s Carlos Broady slams the short, orchestral neck-breaker “Saturday Nite” on top, leaving the listener with shortness of breath on the sofa.
Did these first three tracks already turn Mister West, Mister West into Yeezus? Did they inspire his soul-reload so heavily? Did they give Jay-Z the career boost to be the Best Rapper Alive? In Jake Brown’s book Kanye West In the Studio: Beats Down! Money Up! (2000 – 2006), Kanye comes right out and says:
“Actually, we—Just Blaze and I—didn’t make all those The Blueprint beats for Jay but for Ghostface. His albums shaped us so much. He was the only one who put out something truly great around the turn of the millennium. He was the best rapper. Our favorite rapper. I owe my style to him alone.”
In short, there is no God Ghost, no Yeezus. We don’t know if Wu Brother Number One still feels the love after his first run-through of “Slaves.” However, one fact remains: Jigga fans and Wu-heads have long clashed in forums like monks. RZA himself mangles and loops his way through Michael Masser’s “My Hero Is a Gun,” Mary Jane Girls’ “All Night Long,” the Commodores’ “Nightshift,” and Eric B. & Rakim’s “Move the Crowd” on “Ghost Deini.” Where Hova needs the legendary Mary J, Ghost just croons himself over the bridge: “Marvin, Marvin, you were a friend of mine/You stood for somethin’, ugh 2Pac, Biggie, ohh how we miss you so/We want y’all both to know/We really love you so.”
The Abbott continues his loop-wizardry on “The Grain” and keeps your nodding head locked in a cobra clutch. Here, Ghostface steps into Ol’ Dirty’s role as the conspiracy theorist: “Fingering Pamela Lee/We on the balcony/Dare one of ya’ll to Malcolm X me/Somebody might catch a Kennedy.”
When the FBI is bugging you, and your crew keeps talking about the Pope’s surveillance, that seems like par for the course.
What follows with “Buck 50” would be nothing more than classic Wu soul-bap, the kind that has shown up timelessly on all their albums since 1997—if it weren’t for the deepest line of all time: “Supercalifragalisticexpialidocious/Dociousaliexpifragalisticcalisuper/Cancun, catch me in the room, eating grouper.”
Over the years, Wu aficionados have repeatedly asked why Iron Man never again delivered such lyrical insanity on follow-up solo efforts like Bulletproof Wallets, The Pretty Toney Album, or Fishscale. A small group points to later statements by Superb, a jailmate from Raekwon’s circle, who claimed he penned the majority of SC’s lyrics.
After all, amid accusations of pedophilia, Superb outed himself on the later Ghost track “Flowers” as a highly talented lyricist, with the line “I’m not a gangster, and I hate thugs too/I’m just a nigga that paint a picture without a paintbrush tool,” which still ranks among my GOAT lines. Even G-Unit’s Tony Yayo backed this theory in a 2010 interview with 50 Cent. Fifty immediately dismissed it at the time, wanting to put an end to all friction between the camps.
In 1999, though, the scene is still on edge after 50’s “How to Rob a Industry Nigga” diss. Back then, a young Curtis rapped: “... Catch Rae Ghost and RZA for them funny ass rings.” On the “Clyde Smith” skit from Supreme Clientele, Ghost (or Rae) responds in a disguised voice:
“Straight up, yo that nigga 50 Cent? That’s yo, I don’t even know why he try to do that little dumb ass shit. Right there. But I’m a tell you something. You could say all them other niggas name. But niggas, niggas gon see them based on that big daddy. I know why they ain’t bark on you. ‘Cuz they ain’t try to let your new broke ass trying to come out in the game, and act like they lettin’ you live off they scruff. Ok, you ain’t even that big, dick. And if I see you up in here. I’ma have about 500 wolves on you.”
The rap forums explode, and prophets of doom predict an imminent war between the camps. 50 Cent is seen as a real gangster, and his entourage likewise. Meanwhile, according to various RZA and Shyheim interviews, Ghost has singlehandedly torn apart entire clubs, not to mention the rest of the Wu gang. Rumors spread that Ghost threw Fifty down a flight of stairs (which isn’t true—Ghost only granted that fate to Mase). A few minor diss tracks from both camps appear, but the situation stays calm. Well-informed sources in 2000 claim that the two sides show up with hundreds of goons for protection and agree to a truce.
Ultimately, the “Clyde Smith” skit simply symbolizes Ghost’s overflowing self-confidence in his own strength, which courses through the rest of the album. On the ominously booming “Mighty Healthy,” he casually references the 1987 underground track “Holy War” by Divine Force (“Shake that body, party that Body”), celebrates his biggest single hit with the almost Italo-electro-poppy “Cherchez LaGhost,” and practically levitates over RZA’s unsettling backward-scratch loop in “Stroke of Death.”
Thanks to all of this—and the subsequent Wu bangers—Ghost carried the Wu through those rough years, earning them more gold and platinum plaques. In 2010, Raekwon aimed to do something similar with the Cuban Linx sequel. Freddie Foxxx was right. Sean Price scores a 9:3 internal Ironman victory for Supreme Clientele and thus gets the last word:
“Everyone thought the Wu was finished, and Ghost brought it back. He didn’t just bring it back—he did it all on his own.”
Masterpiece (★★★★★)