Love (the) Ominous World is Blu’s third album in 2024. In March, he released Out of the Blue with Shafiq Husayn, a sequel to their 2018 album The Blueprint. A pairing with Evidence, Los Angeles, dropped in July. These projects revolve around familiar concerns: fulfilling his hip-hop ambitions, honoring without falling prey to neighborhood (gang) customs, and trying to find spiritual sustenance. “I be rewriting my records like I’m trying to perfect this,” he raps on “Chucks.” It’s the nature of musicianship. Eventually, an artist defines his territory. To his credit, Blu has put out some very good work after completing a pioneering run of lo-fi rap projects (Her Favorite Colo(u)r and Jesus), reuniting with producer Exile for 2012’s Give Me My Flowers While I Can Still Smell Them, and embarking on what could be described as a post-Below the Heavens career of easygoing, melodically bright, lyrically engaging backpack rap. Bad Neighbor, his 2015 venture with MED and Madlib, remains a fan favorite. As for Ominous World? It suffers from too many guest spots. Georgia Anne Muldrow dominates “Hello L.A.” and Kurupt takes command of “Chucks” with a fiery cameo. The unfortunately titled “Suge Knight” finds Blu taking a label meeting with the notorious boss during Death Row’s ill-fated “new and untouchable” era in the mid-Aughts. “A Song Called Precipitation” reprises Below the Heavens gem “Dancing in the Rain,” albeit with an environmental twist. On “Smack,” he shares the mic with another blog era star, Fashawn. They’re both onetime prospects who crafted solid indie careers for themselves yet arguably deserved much more. Exile released Love (the) Ominous World on his Dirty Science imprint.
Rise of a Killah: My Life in the Wu-Tang by Ghostface Killah
Rise of a Killah: My Life in the Wu-Tang is Ghostface Killah’s second book. The first, 2007’s The World According to Pretty Toney, is a collection of “Killah-isms” released through MTV, where he occasionally appeared in quirky bumper ads. Rise of a Killah isn’t quite a full autobiography, either. Much like Eminem’s 2002 book Angry Blonde, it compiles a series of lightly-edited interviews – transcribed by John Helfers of DNES Marketing – in a chronological format. Ghost isn’t big on dates and tends to be impressionistic in details. At two points, he invites longtime friend Grant “Un” Williams and manager Mike Caruso to lend insight. The former relays some wild pre-fame crime stories, while Caruso explains some of the business deals he arranged during Ghost’s busy Def Jam era. Overall, Rise of a Killah leans heavily on Ghostface’s idiosyncratic voice, an amalgam of Staten Island bluster, learned wisdom, and fantastical slang. It’s fascinating but maybe not enough to sustain a 250-page book. Superfans intimately familiar with Ghostface’s unusual career have complained about its dearth of new material. They aren’t wrong. But the main issue with Rise of a Killah is that it feels insufficient in craftsmanship for a hugely talented artist, not because Ghost doesn’t respond to Raekwon’s claim (in his much-better 2021 autobiography From Staircase to Stage) that Ghost slept with Aaliyah. St. Martin’s Press.
