Ghostface Killah recorded Fishscale while battling a broken leg, but up-and-coming MCs, don’t get any ideas—crafting classic hip-hop albums is routine activity for Dennis Coles. From his contributions as a member of the Wu-Tang Clan and sidekick tasks with Raekwon for Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, to solo opuses like Ironman and Supreme Clientele, Ghost has already made history. He has also displayed mentoring and team leader skills by helming his Theodore Unit collective to releasing 718, one of the best indie releases of 2004, and giving the group’s standout Trife Da God shine with album cameos and last year’s Put It On The Line mixtape. This year, he continued his legacy, but with a few new ingredients in his gumbo: a major label push from Def Jam, beats from underground hip-hop’s best, and a rejuvenated concentration on conceptual gems. In this interview with HipHopDX, Ghostface talks about employing producers like Pete Rock and MF DOOM, balancing the streets with the boardrooms, and how the sight of a random breezy fucked up his fibula.

HipHopDX: You’ve really stayed busy since The Pretty Toney Album, working on both the DOOM project and the Put It On The Line mixtape with your protégé Trife Da God. How difficult was it to find time between these other projects to work on your own album?

Ghostface: It was crazy as shit, nahmean. I fucked my leg up, I broke my ankle doing this shit, so I wrote the shit on a broke ankle inside the crib, inside the bed, really. That was it. I finished a lot earlier than I what I usually do, because I don’t be puffin’ no more weed, but it was just a crazy task.

HipHopDX: How’d you break your leg?

Ghostface: Fuckin’ with my niggas I ain’t seen in like eight years and shit. You know how shit be. Mothafuckas badden up on you and shit, same night and shit, fucking around outside in the snow. It was my ankle, my fibula. We’re just on ice, step out the car, I’m standing on ice. My nigga called me, I turned around and checked this bitch ass out, and just fucked around and slipped a little bit. I ain’t go all the way down, I held on to him and shit, but my leg just snapped back. And that’s what it was, I just broke the shit. I sat around for like three and a half or four months, just trying to get my shit back together. Just fucked up with pain and shit, that’s all.

HipHopDX: You have a whole lot of production from some of the game’s premier underground producers, like DOOM, Madlib, J. Dilla, and Pete Rock. What made you take that route this time around, even though you’ve established a trademark before from your own producers? Continued on page 2 »