In the winter of 2000, Ghostface Killah returned from a long period of turmoil to deliver his masterpiece. The years since his solo debut, 1996’s Ironman, had been wrought with trauma for the reclusive Wu-Tang Clan fire-breather. Sickened with diabetes, he battled debilitating headaches and dizziness and thought he might be dying. In 1997, the rapper (born Dennis Coles) traveled to West Africa, where he received natural treatments from a bush doctor. Then, in 1999, he was forced to plead guilty to a trumped-up attempted robbery charge from years earlier and served four months behind bars in Rikers Island.
