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BadBadNotGood & Ghostface Killah - Sour Soul

What do you get when you mix tomato sauce and mayonnaise? A delicious, tangy dip suitable for any food item. Mixing the musical funk of BadBadNotGood and the Wu Tang Clan's Ghostface Killah results in the perfect blend of classic GFK that we have all come to love and compositions that give Ghost a fresh canvas to paint his pictures on.

Suitable for any occasion, much like the dip, Sour Soul is largely up-tempo and causes you to either do the most awkward head-nodding-body-shaking dance moves in your suit, or you just have to get up and groove. This BadBadNotGood trio of lads - Mathew Tavares, Chester Hansen and Alexander Sowinski are bloody good at what they do and there's enough in the music, which would normally play second fiddle to the lyrics, to offer an adventure in itself.

Take Six Degrees for example which features Danny Brown. Brown's got a unique rap style to say the least but the seemingly minimal production builds tension and switches up at the perfect moment to allow both Brown and Ghost to have some fun.

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As with any album where the musical composition gets equal shine as the bars from the rapper, there's little gems where the song appears to end only for BadBadNotGood to flex. It's like a reward for staying tuned in despite Ghost not spitting hot bars no more, there's plenty of funk to find in Sour Souls.

Ghostface Killah doesn't really offer much new content, but don't expect Ghost to serve up the same old same old. We've had plenty of Ghost in recent years, he's been one of the more productive Wu members and while we've heard the street narratives before, it feels like there's more wisdom this time around.

When Ghostface Killah tells you that shoe boxes are old school and that you've got to switch up your money saving methods, or to meditate, practice yoga with no pork on the fork, you can't help but smile. While Ghost has a mafioso style that we've heard before, this time around it sounds like Ghost is taking that and then adding to it with advice and help for anyone who wants to follow in his footsteps.

I can't really tell you much more about Ghostface Killah, you know what to expect with the apparently endless vocabulary and imagination. 

The whole Wu Tang situation is interesting because I think this is the best way to serve up the Wu. It'll be different for each member and while I'd love to see plenty of mixing and matching, teaming up, on their own they have the freedom to explore these avenues. While we may have heard Ghost rap like this before, we haven't heard it backed by such a fresh sound served up by BadBadNotGood.

There are plenty of sneaky Wu references from Ghost as well which all you Wu Tang nerds will be able to pick out.

At 12 tracks, it feels short. Like, I'm sure that if you locked this team away they could come up with enough music to drop year round but I love it. Sometimes it's better to get out of the party early instead of lingering around and it felt like Ghost said what he wanted to say and there was no effort to make it last longer than it should have.

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My Bang Up Banger is Nuggets Of Wisdom, which is precisely just that. Ghostface spits pure wisdom for the youngsters over music which ventures down a few different avenues and around a few weird corners. It's far from predictable and you're eagerly anticipating the next note or next drum hit that accompanies a Ghost bar.

What Is It? Pure musical joy. I'm never going to tire of hearing anything Wu Tang so that aspect was signed, sealed and delivered but BadBadNotGood add a fresh vibe to a veteran's work. For me, this is an example of why Ghost is one of/if not the best veteran rapper alive right now. Sure, there's a few greats that are doing their thing but you won't hear them taking such a creative path. It's nice.