Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (soundtrack)
| Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai – The Album | ||||
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| Soundtrack album by RZA, various artists | ||||
| Released | April 11, 1999 | |||
| Genre | Hip hop | |||
| Label | Razor Sharp, Epic, SME | |||
| Producer | RZA | |||
| RZA, various artists chronology | ||||
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| Music from the Motion Picture Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai | |
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| Film score by RZA, various artists | |
| Released | November 20, 2001 |
| Genre | Hip hop |
| Label | JVC Records |
| Producer | RZA |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |
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The soundtrack of the 1999 Jim Jarmusch film Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai features an original score by RZA and also features hip-hop songs by such artists as Wu-Tang Clan, Killah Priest, and Public Enemy. Two soundtrack albums were released, one internationally and another in Japan, each with different song mixes, some of which do not appear in the film. There are many songs, however, that can be heard in the film that appear on neither soundtrack album. It is the first of RZA's first fully scored film works.
The song soundtrack features music from the film as well as quotations from Hagakure: the Book of the Samurai by Tsunetomo Yamamoto (translated into English by William Scott Wilson) as read by Forest Whitaker in the voice of the title character. However, the focus of this album is on the songs, not the instrumental score of the movie.
In a contemporary review for The Village Voice, music critic Robert Christgau gave the album an "A–" grade and called it "hip-hop as mystery, beauty, pleasure—as idealized aural environment." He said that RZA uses vocals musically, as the lyrical content is acceptable but not important, and that the album is more efficient than Curtis Mayfield's Superfly and John Lurie's Get Shorty in "the essential soundtrack service of consistent background listenability." Christgau ranked it the seventh best album of the year in his list for the annual Pazz & Jop critics poll. In a retrospective review, Allmusic's Matt Whalley gave Ghost Dog four stars and was disappointed that "so few people got to hear" the album, which he felt was "prime RZA".
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