The first collaborative album between Ghostface Killah and BADBADNOTGOOD, Sour Soul is a triumph of old-school jazz sounds and potent lyricism. Critics seemed to agree.
BADBADNOTGOOD are known for helping bring experimental jazz into the 2010’s. The band told Passion of the Weiss:
The challenge and fun thing about this record was trying to create a lot of space… there was a lot of us thinking, “Yeah this would sound cool if Ghost was on it,” sending him an email, him sending it back, and then sometimes being like “we could have done this way better.” Taking that vocal track and totally writing something around that. It was a really cool process.
In a break from his typical lyrical outputs, Ghostface doesn’t lace every single bar with hidden meaning, preferring to deliver his rhymes straight to the camera, allowing easy interpretation and maximum enjoyment. With MF DOOM, Elzhi and Danny Brown producing star turns, the album, at just 33 minutes, never lacks in energy or progression, and never lags.