THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

Ghostface is the first rapper you hear on Enter the Wu-Tang, and he comes with what RZA describes as ‘one of the most famous darts in Wu-Tang history’: ‘Ghostface / Catch the blast of a hype burst / My glock bursts / Leave in a hearse / I did worse.’  In those lines – delivered in his trademark front-foot yelp, each small package of words dropped with the rock-solid certainty and authority of Gospel – the Stapleton boy sets out his place in the Wu firmament by first using the gunfire of that ‘glock burst’ as his metaphor for rhyming and then making it a reality with the apparently throw-away admission that ‘I did worse’.  Immediately, the rhyme buzzes with ambiguity, with a capriciousness that could be Ghostface’s calling card.

Ashton/Chamber