Ghostface Killah - It's Over

"I heard a voice through a bullhorn, a white man he said "Yo, Starks you're surrounded, put down your gun, look at the rooves, there's nothing but cops, N-word, you better not run""

Album: The Pretty Toney Album [4th solo album]
Genre: Hip Hop, East Coast Hip Hop
Album Release: April 20th 2004
Length: 4.10
Producer: K-Def
Vocalist: Ghostface Killah [age 34]
Label: Def Jam Records

Official Audio


Sampled from David Porter - I'm Afraid the Masquerade is Over

Charts, Streams & Sales

Spotify: Over 150 thousand
YouTube Music: Over 100 thousand

Credits

Details

• Ghostface doesn't use the 'Killah' part of his name anywhere on the album.
• The Pretty Toney Album is a Ghostface album but it isn't a Wu-Tang one. The Toney in the album title refers to Ghostface's alias Tony Stark and was likely changed to avoid a copywrite claim from Marvel. So, in essance, the album is self titled. Ghostface has put his own name to it. It's personal. It isn't Wu-Tang. Members of the Wu-Tang Clan have often had their individual successes questioned by critics who asked "would they have reached the same heights if it wasn't for their association with Wu?" As if to suggest the collective are the real draw.
  
  It is fair to say that many hip hop acts have sought to legitimise themselves, or at least get some order of recognition, by being affiliated with the clan. There are over 50 Wu affiliates, which doesn't include the original 10 members. Most Wu solo albums, especially those from the core group, feature RZA on production, this album doesn't.
  
  Raekwon and Ghostface have been synonymous with each other and traditionally feature heavily on each others albums. Ghostface features on 12 out of 17 tracks on Raekwon's acclaimed Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. Raekwon doesn't feature here. This is a Ghostface album. Early in his first verse he even has a bar about how his gang get killed "my eighth platoon got murked, got burnt for all our work, after the funeral, I laid low"
  
  
• The track is about the feeling you get when things go wrong. The first verse is about his crew getting murdered, only for him to seek revenge and be caught by the police. The second verse is him cheating on his lady, getting caught, and then cursing the loss of his material possessions. Now, Ghostface details these two fictional scenarios, which are in line with his pimptastic, carefully crafted, mink and fur clad mafioso image, whilst completely avoiding any claims of inauthenticity in hip hop.
  
  The listener doesn't for a second believe Ghostface has been arrested for attempted murder, and they could quickly check to see if he was getting divorced for having an affair. We know this is happening to the character, Pretty Toney, and that it isn't real. But it's a storytelling song, real in a hip hop sense, without being autobiographical.
  
  Ghostface is using the imagery of a Scarface type character to convey very real feelings of despondency that everyone experiences. In particular, it's that very moment when it all goes wrong, when the bottom falls out.
  
  The production captures this perfectly with screeching violins, mimicking anxiety, followed by two very dramatic drops when a gong is struck (1.06 and 2.17). In the second instance, Ghostface times the word 'drop' to land at the exact time the beat drops. It sends shivers up the spine.
  
  
• The skit at the end of the track is performed by Wu affiliate Solomon Childs.
• The producer K-Def is known as part of the hip hop duo Real Live. 'The Turaround' by Real Live is a highly rated underground album released in 1996.
  

Lyrics