Release: December 10, 2015
Label: Psychopathic Records
Violent J here to tell y'all about a special ICP album that's way, way underground. It's called "The Phantom - X-tra Spooky Edition!" You see, a version of this ultra rare release first surfaced from the underground at the 2015 Gathering of the Juggalos. That version was just called "The Phantom". We gave a copy away to everybody that attended the ICP seminar for free. Only then it wasn't a full length ICP album. It was more like a super rare, ICP 5 song EP, and the rest of it was kind of a Psychopathic Records sampler. What made it so cool was the 5 ICP songs had never been heard before. They were all brand new songs. There was also a brand new song from the latest release or from the upcoming release of each every artist on Psychopathic Records which made this rare CD also a sampler.
Well, me and Shaggy received so many complements about the 5 ICP songs on this rare CD during the meet and greets on The Marvelous Missing Link Tour that we decided to hook "The Phantom" up even more! We took off all the songs that made it a sampler, and in place of them we added even more brand new, never heard before ICP songs to make it an ultra rare, super underground, full length ICP album! Thus this new version is now called "The Phantom - X-tra Spooky Edition! And it's now all ICP songs, a full album's worth, and it will NOT be sold in record stores anywhere! You can ONLY get this super rare, collectors item ICP album at HatchetGear.com or on any of the 6 stops of the "RassleRap Charity Festival Tour" or the Big Ballas X-Mas Party.
First off, one of the things that make this album so unique and ultra cool is the tons and tons of crazy and outrageous skits and extra fill in material that we put between each song. It just goes on and on with crazy shit, that we spent hours digging up, locating and placing between all the songs. It actually gives the whole album a feel and a sound unlike anything we've ever released before. It's truly rare and unusual indeed, muthafuckas.
Song 1 is the title track called to the album called "Phantom". The beat is a dope track by Seven who's better known as the producer for Tech N9ne. My favorite thing about the beat is that it has this one monstrous bass drop in it that repeats itself throughout the song and if you're listening to this song on a good sound system, every time that bass drop hits, it bounces your entire car up off the ground. The song is about what Shaggy and myself would do if we died and came back as phantoms. It's pretty fuckin' fresh. I must admit though, I feel like I could of done a better job with my lyrics but I really do like the track and so do all our homies who were there when we made the song. Seven did a great fuckin' job on the beat too.
Song 2 is a track called "No More Jail". Young Wicked did this high action track. It's a dope ass song and even before we added the police siren sound effects, I instantly knew what I wanted to make this song about the second I heard this beat. It's about 2 crooks who are running from the cops and vowing to never again go back to jail. It tells the crazy ass stories of a car thief and a dope dealer who both find themselves in the middle of a high speed chase with the cops and doing their fuckin' best to avoid getting pinched and heading back to the old pokey once again. The lyrics are pretty goofy and sometimes a bit stupid like the part where I kiss Shaggy on the cheek, cause that would never happen in real life no matter fuckin' what.
Song 3 is another dope ass track by Young Wicked that I really, really like called "Benapryl." Benapryl is an anti psychotic or anti depressent drug that I completely made up to represent all the anti psychotic and anti depresent drugs out there like Prozac, Zoloft, Buspar and Xanax and all of them shits. The song is basically about a psychopath who's mad at his shrink because even though he's been taking the Benapryl as perscribed, he's still feeling and acting crazy and it hasn't been helping him at all. I really like the bounce and flow of this song. I say it's pretty fuckin' dope if I don't say so myself. And I do say so because I just said I did.
Song 4 is a fresh ass beat by Psychopathic's house producer Kuma. The song is called "Complicated World". On this song Shaggy and myself trade raps back and forth about many of the fucked up things that seem like they are wrong with the world. It asks alot of questions like why are so many things fucked up like this and like that? For example "Why did Robin Williams have to kill himself?" is one of the questions we ask in this song. To me, this song has an old school vibe to it, and it reminds me of something we would of done maybe during the days of "Bizzar/Bizaar" back in like 2000 or so.
Track 5 is another Young Wicked killer track. It's called "Detroit Car Jackin'" and that's exactly what the song is about. I remember when car jackin' first became popular in Detroit actually because it was all over the news and I remember my old friend Snoopy actually got arrested for car jacking and they set an example of him and sentenced hin 25 fuckin' years for it! I actually bumped into Snoopy just after he got out which was incredible. He was working as a security guard at The Fillmore during one of our Hallowicked Clown Shows. We hung out that night at the after party but finding anything to talk about was hard and extremely awkward because I had so many stories to tell him from the last 25 years, and he basically only had one story... prison. It was a lopsided conversation to say the least.
The beat to Track 6 is a Young Wicked banger that we ended up calling "Super Duper". It's about an everyday ninja who one day wakes up and discovers that he has super powers. He slowly but surely realizes that he can basically do just about everything that Superman can do. So he's trippin' out flying around and doing all this cool shit and then the next day he wakes up and... well... I don't wanna totally ruin the story for you so I'll just let you listen to the song and you ninjas can hear the ending yourselves. I really like the way the main vocal is mixed, it has a really cool effect on it. I brought in an old Eazy E track where Eazy had the same effect on his vocals and I had Kuma match that effect for my vocals on this song. It sounds perfect to me. Even better than Eazy's effect.
Track 7 is an awesome song called "Murder Gone Wrong". Young Wicked did the beat for this bad boy. The song is comprised up of two different storys about two different guys, (Shaggy and myself) who go out and attempt to commit a murder but the shit backfires on them and they end up getting killed themselves. The chorus has an awesome wicked clown sample of a joker saying "The Jokes On You, Jack" and it sounds pretty fuckin' cool. I really like this song and it's probably one of the best tracks on this album. The song sounds really good cranked up really fuckin' loud too so crank that bitch loud as you can and not just on some feeble computer speakers either. That's no way to listen to an ICP jam!
Track 8 is called "Williamsburg Psych Ward" and it's a beat by Young Wicked who just so happens to be a master of wicked shit tracks. This song is a Shaggy-only song about a guy trapped inside of a loony bin. He talks about what goes on in this particular nut house and at the end he finds a way to escape. It was originally me rapping on this song but I fuckin' hated the way my vocals turned out so Shaggy rewrote it to his liking and he did the rap and we all think it turned out much better. Even with Shaggy's better vocals I must admit that this is a song that would of never made it onto a Joker's Card. It's just too boring. But some ninjas like to hear rare songs from ICP and this one is just about as rare as it gets. It almost didn't even make it on to this super rare album!
Track 9 is a fresh remix to the song from "The Marvelous Missing Link: Found" called "Get Clowned". Young Wicked did this remix himself. Actually the origional version of "Get Clowned" still hasn't been heard anywhere yet. We liked the lyrics and the concept of the song, but we just didn't like the beat that much so we had Kuma remix it and we had Young Wicked remix it and whoever's remix turned out fresher would make the album and Kuma's ultimately won the battle. But Young Wicked's version was a close second and that's why we included it on this album. The original first version is still hidden in the vaults perhaps for a "Forgotten Freshness Volume 6" down the road or something.
That's all the songs on this super fresh, ultra rare collectors item, ICP album. You don't want to miss this album especially for 3 reasons:
1. It has 9 never before heard, ICP songs easily worth checkin' out.
2. It wont be around forever as it's only a limited edition pressing. Only 2000 CDs have been pressed up so if you happen to buy one, you will actually be 1 of only 2000 ninjas in the world who actually own a pressed up, authentic CD of "Phantom - X-tra Spooky Edition"
3. Between each song is tons and tons of hilarious, psychotic and insane filler samples and just all around crazy ass shit to listen to, which makes this CD worth buying alone, not to mention all the fresh, brand new, ICP songs.
01. | Phantom | |
02. | No More Jail | |
03. | Benapryl | |
04. | Complicated World | |
05. | Detroit Car Jackin' | |
06. | Super Duper | |
07. | Murder Gone Wrong | |
08. | Williamsburg Psych Ward | |
09. | Get Clowned (Remix) |