Ghostface (the artist formerly known as Ghostface Killah, or GFK, to friends). Armed with his latest heat rock of an album, Fish Scale, which boasts production from MF DOOM, Pete Rock, J.Dilla, MadLib, and many others, the broad shouldered Ghost stands ready and willing to carry the Wu Tang's burden and return rap to it's proper course. "You know, niggas try to come on that other shit," he says of hip hop's growing ranks of imposters, "So I just had come back to raw drugs, sex, money, and murder shit real quick to show these young niggas how it's s'possed to be done."

And who better to kick the truth to the young black youth, than Ghost, an artist more universally accepted than American Express. "I know that niggas got love for me," he says. "Where ever I go, up north, down south, out west, niggas show me love, because they respect me as a true artist." In an industry of swagger jackers and copy cats Ghost has always stood for integrity and innovation and his unique wordplay and unparalleled taste in beats has been demonstrated on each of his four solo albums (Ironman, Supreme Clientele, Bulletproof Wallets, The Pretty Toney LP), as well as his contributions to the four Wu Tang Clan albums, and perhaps most notably Raekwon's lauded classic, Only Built For Cuban Linx. "It used to be all about originality and flipping new words," he says. "Now you got niggas all using the same words, but I come from that Slick Rick era, that Biz Markie era when everybody had to sound different, so my sound ain't like anybody else.