Ghostface Killah – “Love Don’t Live Here No More”

Staten Island’s reigning urban griot is back—this time in the form of a “vigilante inspired by a quest for personal retribution and bent on saving his community from the grips of crooked authority and urban decay.” At least, that’s what the press release says about Ghostface Killah’s upcoming album 36 Seasons, featuring AZ, Kool G Rap, Pharoahe Monch, and Blue Note Records’ rising star (and friend of Prince) Kandace Springs.

Scheduled to drop on December 9th, a week after the long-anticipated release of the Wu-Tang Clan’s A Better Tomorrow, 36 Seasons is a narrative-driven concept album that promises a soulful lean thanks to Brooklyn band/production team The Revelations.

The album’s lush lead single “Love Don’t Live Here No More” has everything you’ve come to expect from one of hip-hop’s greatest living storytellers: vivid detail, high stakes, emotional punch. Whether or not the rejection the song’s narrator is served after strolling up to his boo’s place after nine years away is what drives him down to vigilante town remains to be seen, but if love won’t turn a good man bad, I don’t know what will.

And, if Ghostface’s verbal dexterity and novelist’s eye aren’t enough to persuade you to buy the album, the vinyl and CD packaging will include 20 pages of comic art overseen by Matthew Rosenberg, co-writer of Ghostface’s Twelve Reasons to Die comic mini-series.

Sight and sound—Ghostface’s got all your important senses covered. Get your hands on this and A Better Tomorrow (portable speaker version, natch), and you’ve got yourself a Shaolin holiday.

See you in the 36th chamber.