PRIOR to iconic Wu Tang Clan founding member Ghostface Killah’s emergence onto the stage at St Luke’s, a feeling of palpable tension had began to arise within the venue. With the city’s notoriously vocal fans waiting with baited breath for the MC often referred to as ‘Tony Starks’, a lesser performer may have felt the pressure as he faced the throngs of passionate fans that had dedicated their Friday night to catching his set.
However, the moment that the Staten Island native appeared; exuding the presence and magnetism which has been an integral part of his persona since we first heard him grace a track way back in 1992, any notion of concern quickly evaporated as those in attendance prepared themselves for a masterclass in gritty East coast hip-hop.
Declaring his intentions from the outset as he tore through Enter The 36 Chambers classic ‘Bring The Ruckus’, Ghostface Killah was greeted with an uproarious response from those in the grandiose venue as the crowd began to convulse as one to the revolutionary beat that ushered in a new era all those years ago.
Despite the fact that Ghostface Killah has now assumed an elder statesman role within the ever-diversifying landscape of hip-hop, his ability to galvanise an audience and deliver his rhymes with the charisma and panache that elevated him among his peers in the 90’s remains entirely undiminished. Holding his own against any young pretender, the MC has been prolific as ever in recent years while turning in superb collaborative projects with Adrian Younge and Canadian jazz trio BadBadNotGood to name a mere few. This was certainly present within Ghostface’s performance, tearing through legendary cuts such as ‘We Made It’ ‘Daytona 500’ and ‘Da Mystery Of Chessboxin’ with renewed passion and vigour.
Expanding upon the rapport that he’s built with the Glaswegian audience during his sporadic visits to the city as both a solo artist and alongside his Shaolin brothers, ‘Iron Man’ was relentless in both his rhyming and carefully coaxing the audience into a frenzy.
However, the show wasn’t without moments of poignancy; manifesting most explicitly in his rousing performance of the late Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s dancefloor filler ‘Shimmy Shimmy Ya’ and the more solemn ‘Can It All Be So Simple?’
Urging the crowd to illuminate the building with phones and lighters, its haunting chorus provided respite and a moment of reflection upon the rugged background from which he rose up.
With ‘C.R.E.A.M’s shiver-inducing, piano-based beat transporting the audience back to a time in which hip-hop wasn’t a commercialised behemoth of an industry and remained a coherent expression of reality, Ghostface’s enduring legacy and cultural impact was made all too clear when he was joined onstage by some loyal fans.
Aiding the MC in tearing through the visceral ‘Protect Ya Neck’ and even enabling one of the devotees to perform one of his classic verses as an acapella, it spoke to the role which Starks has had in turning the once underground genre into a worldwide phenomenon.
Part of the Restless Natives festival, Ghostface’s performance demonstrated why he and his career are the embodiment of a creative spirit which cannot be contained and is capable of contributing to our collective cultural history.
With the new East End event’s ethos based around celebrating the fiercely independent voices of our world, few artists are more suited to fit that criteria than an MC that refuses to rest on his laurels and continues to bring joy to those that have been captured by his unmistakable flow.
