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This is essentially an R&B record with Ghostface sounding a bit like Barry White on a bender. Tracks such as 'Let’s Stop Playin’,' featuring a typically lush John Legend, are very good, with Ghost’s lyrical skills as fluid as the track he rhymes over.
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Can the silliest album of the year also be the smartest and the sexiest?
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It’s clairvoyantly obvious that Ghostface Killah’s ideas are abound. Forever flourishing, there is so much to love about an album as playfully awesome as this one.
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While the album's softer instrumentation and thematic preoccupation with romance may initially frustrate some diehard rap fans, its silky hooks begin to sink in with repeated listens.
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Poetry functions as a curious but welcome detour from a hardcore icon admirably unafraid to look like a sucker for love.
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Nasty as he wants to be, Ghostdini is nothing more than the Face and friends having a good time. The results are as improper as they are infectious.
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More or less, Ghostdini: The Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City manages to strike a balance between both his personas: the violent, self-indulgent Shaky Dog of early Wu Tang, and the at once more humorous and reflective Ghost of more recent years.
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Even the raw stuff has the humanizing detail that keeps Ghost interesting years after we've grown accustomed to his imagesplaying Joycean flow.
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It's hard not to inflate the rating of a record with some truly incredible joints, yet it's difficult to ignore the two-thirds filler combined with Ghostface's least complicated rhymes in years.
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It's tough to imagine how The Wizard of Poetry came into existence in the first place.
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All the more frustrating is the fact that Ghost’s guest verses on the new Raekwon album are stone-cold incredible. Clearly, he can still rap, but only when his audience isn’t looking.
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The garish cover of Ghostdini is apt: this is an elaborate and unfunny joke, not to mention--if it even bears mentioning at this point—profoundly hateful to women
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This project was D.O.A. from the moment Ghost announced it a year back, and hip-hop fans should consider themselves lucky that there’s at least a few salvageable moments in Wizard of Poetry.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 9 out of 12
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Mixed: 2 out of 12
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Negative: 1 out of 12
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May 12, 2011