The one song Ghostface Killah refuses to perform
It was the single that launched his solo career, and it features the queen of hip-hop soul herself, Mary J Blige. But even so, Ghostface Killah refuses to play ‘All That I Got Is You.’
Ghostface became the fifth Wu-Tang member to put out a solo album following the release of the group’s debut album 36 Chambers, with his effort, Ironman, arriving in October 1996. Supported by lead single ‘All That I Got Is You,’ it managed to secure a number-two position on the Billboard 200 chart.
‘All That I Got Is You’ proved to be a popular song in its own right, which was surely aided by the presence of Mary J Blige. She was already a star by this point in time, so the Wallabee Champ’s first ever single as a solo artist was starting from a good place.
The song is a surprisingly tender number, considering that it came from a member of the uncompromisingly hardcore Wu-Tang Clan. It was unquestionably on the emotional side, especially when the lyrics are broken down.
The song was Ghostface’s tribute to his mother, who had experienced a great deal of difficulty in trying to raise the young Ghostface and his brothers. Those brothers had lived with muscular dystrophy, which Ghostface had to help his mother to deal with.
It’s for this reason that Ghostface could never return to the song in later life, as he revealed during a conversation with Big Daddy Kane for iOne Digital’s I Got Questions x Celeb Edition series. Of the track, he said, “It just bring me to a place like, it just… it just making me sad.”
Ghostface admitted that he can’t bring himself to play the song on stage because “it just brings me back to when we was going through it.” Their living conditions were extremely difficult, with “roaches everywhere.” The song is a reflection of his actual childhood, and, while his fans may want to hear it, he just finds it too difficult.
Whenever Ghostface hears the track back now, he wonders if he went “too far” by laying out the truth of his experiences quite as plainly as he did. Noting that neither his mother nor his brothers are around anymore, he concluded, “That record is pain.”
‘All That I Got Is You’ is a fan favourite, but Ghostface’s reasons for never playing it are more than justified. It unlocks too much pain in him.