Sweltering and bathed in neon green, hundreds of bodies packed in beneath the low ceiling of Good Room Wednesday night to glimpse one of the legends of New York hip-hop. Arriving late but with ample energy, Ghostface Killah of the Wu-Tang Clan performed a blistering 60 minute set at the Greenpoint venue, delivering classic material including "C.R.E.A.M." "Ice Cream" and other non-dairy related tracks from his deep catalog. As guests at the "intimate show" lit cigarettes, puffed joints, and sipped gallon upon gallon of Heineken (the beer mega-brand sponsored the show), Ghostface eschewed his newer material, which includes Sour Soul, his excellent collaboration with jazz act Badbadnotgood and gave the crowd exactly what it wanted: a throwback trip down memory lane through the glory days of '90s East Coast rap.
With brief turns on Notorious B.I.G.'s "Hypnotize" and The Lox's "Money, Power, Respect," the Staten Island emcee seemed to show no signs of fatigue, despite reminding the crowd (several times) that he had just flown in from London "on a twelve hour flight."
Ghostface owed much of the night's success to the evening's opening acts, which included DJ (and editor of the music blog 2dopeboyz) Meka and rising Bronx-born rapper YC The Cynic, who veered away from his own backing tracks numerous times throughout the night, sharing freestyles with lines including "I'm going down like Leo" and "I'm high-brow like Frida Kahlo." Still, the night and all its ooze-green energy belonged to Ghostface Killah. He is, after all, a superstar.
