Hyperactive off the cocaine, got me senile

Ol’ Dirty Bastard feat. Ghostface: Back in the Air
From A Son Unique (Def Jam, 2005)

OK, so Spine Magazine scooped us on this one, but as Maru said in his tardy Jamrock post (scroll down): shit needs to be heard.

Where to start? There’s the RZA beat, cleaner than usual but still razor sharp, sporting a melancholic horn and harpsichord arrangement. And then there’s Ghost’s guest verse, which finds the Wally champ a bit lacking in quotables, but still spitting so energetically that you expect him to eat the damn mic.

And then there’s ODB.

Much of ODB’s appeal lay in his witty unpredictable talent and natural game. You never, ever, ever could predict what ODB might do at any given movement, whether in the studio or on the street. Some of his most memorable moments involved near-incomprehensible yelling (on record), ridiculous drug escapades (in real life), and bizarre non sequiters (everywhere).

However, from what I’ve heard of A Son Unique (which has apparently been pushed back from its scheduled August release date), Ol’ Dirty was really starting to get his shit together before his death. Check the interlocking rhyme schemes and deceptively simple confessional style in his second verse:

Notorious glock buster, cap peeling block hustler
Who slap hoes who lack feelings
Back building, crack dealing black villain,
Had a taste for blood spilling, love stealing
Anything that twinkle bright to my eyesight
Many nights I used to stay up after twilight
And wonder to myself if there’s a heaven or hell
Been alone in these streets since 11 or 12

That last couplet is brutally effective, condensing so many emotions into two simple lines. While ODB may not have been at the top of his game when he died, he was certainly gathering a respectable second wind – which only makes it even more tragic that he was taken before his time.

R.I.P.