Big Ghost LTD, Rigz, & Mooch - The Only Way Out [2019]

New York is a magical state of profound influence on the Hip-Hop game. I don’t need to get into the details of NYC and its boroughs, but while NYC gets the credit as the hip-hop Mecca, in today’s day and age the other, smaller cities of the state are looking to claim glory for themselves. Cities like Albany, Buffalo, and Hempstead are all aiming to leave their mark on the genre that has so long been dominated by the Big Apple, and it is through tireless grinding, astounding quality of material, and very tight association that these cities are finally getting their time in the spotlight. Key among these cities, and probably the city with the most rappers quantity-wise of New York’s smaller towns, is Rochester. Sitting just off of the coast of Lake Ontario, The Flower City is home to some of the most well known names in underground rap today, and the list just keeps getting larger. 38 Spesh is titan in the area, and his Trust Gang affiliation brings attention to cats like Klass Murda, Black Geez, and Che Noir among others. Eto (formerly Lil Eto) is making big moves, having released several albums in 2019, including a stunningly evil collaboration with DJ Muggs. But the city still has plenty of underdogs with tales that haven’t been heard yet, and there isn’t anyone that has had his ear to the streets more than Big Ghost.

Big Ghost LTD is… well they’re a total mystery. No one really knows who this person is, if they’re a dude or not, or even if it’s only one person or a whole production team. What we do know is that Ghost is one of the best samplers and beatmakers that are around right now, and a person who isn’t afraid to collaborate with people they know will be dope. Since gaining major recognition with their collaborative project with Westside Gunn and Conway the Machine, Griselda Ghost, people have been clamoring to receive the Big Ghost LTD Treatment. So far, they’ve dropped jewels with CRIMEAPPLE, 38 Spesh, Hus Kingpin, AHKNLEJOHN, and even the legendary Ghostface Killah, among others. But this time, after already dropping two projects this year with D. Brash from Chicago and 38 Spesh, he’s going back to his roots with another collaboration with a duo: Rigz and Mooch, two close partners forged together in the fires of Rochester, NY. The Only Way Out is not only the last of many projects for Big Ghost in 2019, but also one amongst many for the two emcees, who have both dropped several projects apiece amongst them. But what their solo projects have in slapdash and mechanical churning appeal, The Only Way Out makes up for by being one of the most cinematic and compelling releases by any of the three. An ebbing and flowing narrative, a spread of nocturnal and reflective beats that read like movie scenes individually, and a duo of rappers displaying chemistry that goes much deeper than the music keeps you coming back to the release like you would an episode of The Wire or any crime movie.

It’s thrown around a lot, but think the most apt comparison, truly, for Rigz and Mooch as a rapping duo is Raekwon and Ghostface Killah They hit a lot of the same cues, and even invoke some of their skits, while penning the album. The voices of both men are very similar in that they are nasally and high-pitched (again, like Ghost and Rae), but they have enough differences to come across as complementary rather than redundant. Rigz is more grounded and measured in his approach, with his lower buzz of a monotone reflecting his natural speaking voice, showing confidence in his delivery. It reminds me of Blu, Elcamino, and fellow Rochester native Eto, with consistent delivery and solid rhyme schemes being key to his appeal. In comparison, Mooch can almost play as a hype-man to Rigz’ subdued style by flashing rage and recklessness. It may not be at all intentional, but Mooch sounds eerily similar to neighboring Buffalo’s Westside Gunn; there are many tracks on her where I would expect the uninitiated to confuse the two emcees (nothing that I would ever call biting of course). In some ways Rigz seems to be the brains of the operation, more calculated in his flows and word choice, while Mooch is the wildcard; this dichotomy plays very well into the “movie” concept that they have going on, and the partnership they have across The Only Way Out is key to understanding it’s themes.

This was my first exposure to Mooch, The Renaissance produced by Brooklyn’s Raticus. I felt the mixing was off on this one, and to be honest it put me off of Mooch until this newest project.

Brotherhood is a concept that plays into the lyrics and storytelling of this album in every aspect. The relationship between Rigz and Mooch, who, if this album is to be trusted, have grown up together and matured in the rap game together, runs deeper than most other duos you have heard. First and foremost, the two are businessmen, and they run their drug-slinging business together, spend the spoils together, and re-up together. Much of the beginning of the album is the grind and struggle of a small time dealer, with the intro clearly setting up a conflict: Rigz and Mooch need money. In a clear callback to the classic intro of Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, the two are faced with being at the bottom of the barrel, and much like the conclusions that Rae and Ghost came to back in ’95, they decide that another flip was in order. They buy protection and secure their spot on 77B, peddle their crack in an unusually active early morning on 3AM, and after running out try and get in contact with a connect for a resupply on Re-Up. They reach the peak of their business on Custom Shit and We Took Ya Licks where, after getting a coke-white paint job on their whip, Mooch and Rigz hit the streets and grind the fiends down to dust. The stretch of tracks between Summer School and Deadbeats is the most interesting on The Only Way Out, as they serve as flashback scenes and backstory to the two men. Summer School details how Rigz met Mooch after failing out of school: Rigz travels to the west-side to attend summer classes and meets that kid in the back of the class that he had an instant connection with. Without this stroke of fate, the two may never have made music together, with making music being Mooch’s dream since he was a kid. Another Day is the story of their first days as hustlers, doing small time robberies to make cream, watching their backs, and trying to find a lucrative grind that they could both sink their teeth into. Deadbeats, the emotional climax of the album, is honestly a beautiful look into the mind of children growing up with absentee fathers, with both Rigz and Mooch going into detail how being a child without a father figure hurt them and led them to the lives they now lead. The most powerful statement on the entire album comes from Rigz, who, in a statement to his Father, says “you the worst kind of coward. You had me out here looking up to other n****s… looking for you.” He says it is such this… emotionally detached way, like he’s already accepted his Father is a no good rat bastard, and he’s simply laying out the facts. Shit gives me chills every time. From here, the album takes a paranoid turn, with the two becoming more wary of the people around them; on Sleep Wit It the two start mistrusting everyone they deal with, from the plugs to the runners to the crackheads, and start sleeping with their heat and money with them to stay safe. Fall Outs, in contrast to the previous track, puts supreme importance of recognizing who is in your circle, and Rigz and Mooch state that the bond between them is what is keeping them successful. But those same dudes they felt funny about on Sleep Wit It come back to haunt them, with a rat having outed Mooch, who ends up in jail at the beginning of Tit For Tat. Rigz has a plan to get back at the rat however, and lets his bro on the inside know that the rat’s brother is in the same facility, in the same block that he’s in. Tekk9, who plays the mutual acquaintance, finds the rat’s brother, and shanks him in the ultimate act of revenge for spilling on Mooch. While that’s the end of the “movie”, Flag Day is like a credit sequence, featuring extreme stunting and braggadocio from not only the two stars, but also the entire Da Cloth collective from Rochester, all of which set it down for their block and end this film of an album with the ultimate triumphal posse cut.

Big Ghost LTD has crafted a true film score on The Only Way Out, which is probably the most cinematic effort in their career, and displays the most chemistry between instrumental and artist to date. It’s also very different between a lot of their other releases for different reasons, and key among them is this: besides Stuck (Intro), there are almost no vocal samples on here at all. Everything on here is sampled instrumental (maybe even some live playing too, I don’t know what Big Ghost is capable of), which is very different from even his last release with 38 Spesh, where the bread and butter of many tracks on A Bullet For Every Heathen was tightly looped soul and funk singers. Ghost obviously saw the merit of stripping that part back to create this cohesive and flowing album experience, and sees each track as its own self-contained scene with differing moods and atmospheres. The unifying factor is boom-bap, with many of the drum patterns and percussion being rooted in that 90’s hip-hop, especially NYC hip-hop. The track that embraces this mood the most is We Took Ya Licks, which, without Mooch and Rigs, I would have thought to have been a leftover from Only Built 4 Cuban Linx or Ironman. It’s high energy, high tempo, has a banging bassline, this cool guitar lick, and super active and rolling drums and snares. Besides this outlier, a lot of the record is less in-your-face, like on 77B with the mid-tempo drums and smooth bass playing. Stripping it back and letting the instrumental breath is something Big Ghost utilizes often on The Only Way Out, with 3AM slowing it down with just a drum line and some chilly chimes to convey that overnight grind, Summer School with its jazzy saxophone and prominent bassline, and Custom Shit with no drums at all, utilizing these blissful and elegant synth guitar licks and super fat bass groove. Things get grimier on Fall Out, with its haunting piano keys and faint backing strings driving home the restlessness and distrust presented in the story, which continues into Tit For Tat; it shifts into the reality of a evil plan about to go down, with the keys getting harder, the drums shorter, the snares much more pronounced. The most dramatic and cinematic cuts present themselves at different points on the record. Re-Up is made of these soaring string samples, plinking and icy piano keys, and a steady boom-bap beat; it’s pensive, apprehensive, and slightly sinister. Another Day sounds like an important scene, with a mafia-movie string section. Deadbeats, being the emotional crux of the album, features these reflective pianos chords, which when mixed with the blues guitar breakdowns evokes hella sadness and leads emotional weight to the struggle the men face with their fathers. Flag Day in many ways is a perfect closer for the album, bringing in a lot of the instruments that were so sparingly used throughout the record: crisp horns, a great backing string section, banging bass, and even a small occasional vocal clip. It feels like the good guys winning the fight, and with everyone on this posse cut it’s like everyone is getting the piece of the pie.

Big Ghost’s last collaboration, A Bullet For Every Heathen with fellow Rochester native 38 Spesh, was much more soulful than The Only Way Out, drawing heavily from vintage samples.

Rochester needs to be a city on your radar going into 2020, because the talent coming out of this town is going to be huge. Anyone who Big Ghost collabs with is an artist (or in this case artists) that is worth his salt, and now that he’s made records with *three* cats from Rochester there should be no question about the city’s skills at churning out A1 emcees. Rigz and Mooch display chemistry among them that I haven’t seen in a long time; there have been people bringing their minds together and combining sounds to create something amazing, but Rigz and Mooch are on the same level, their heads and wavelengths so completely in tune that their stories and their brotherhood hits so much harder. The Only Way Out is an amazing gift to receive before this new decade comes, with Big Ghost flexing his muscles as a true music producer more than he ever has, and Rigz and Mooch making for damn sure they are in on the discussion of Rochester’s greats. There will forever be more than one way to make it out of the hood, and making culture and quality music like The Only Way Out is a ticket to stardom if I’ve ever heard one.

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