Ghetto Gothic

Ghetto Gothic
Studio album by Melvin Van Peebles
Released	April 4, 1995 (1995-04-04)
Recorded	1995
Genre	See below
Label	Capitol
Producer	Melvin Van Peebles
Melvin Van Peebles chronology
What the....You Mean I Can't Sing?! (1974) Ghetto Gothic (1995) Nahh... Nahh Mofo (2010) The album's alternate cover featured a photograph of Van Peebles, as opposed to the painted cover. Alternate cover

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Ghetto Gothic is the fifth studio album by Melvin Van Peebles. Released in 1995, this album marks the second traditional music effort by Van Peebles, after What the....You Mean I Can't Sing?! Previously, Van Peebles released the experimental spoken word albums Brer Soul, Ain't Supposed To Die a Natural Death and As Serious as a Heart-Attack.

Ghetto Gothic sees Van Peebles embracing a modern production sound, while the music encompasses various music styles, including hip hop, reggae, blues and classical music.

Following the release of Melvin Van Peebles' film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, he premiered two musicals on Broadway, Don't Play Us Cheap and Ain't Supposed To Die A Natural Death, deriving from earlier plays he had written in French. To express the ghetto's turmoil and pathos, Van Peebles used sprechgesang as a form he could tell stories in; he recorded three albums using this style, Brer Soul, Ain't Supposed To Die a Natural Death and As Serious as a Heart-Attack. The albums were categorized as spoken word at the time, but was later called a precursor to rapping and hip hop music.