What do you feel is the most important aspect to a truly great rapper? Is it flow, wordplay or storytelling? Or is it non-technical things like their worldview, their upbringing or the people they surround themselves with? Dylandep It’s all of the above. You gotta really practise and then you got to understand your flow, understand wordplay, how to use your vocabulary. It do depend on where you’re at in your life and the life that you’re living. But as long as you know what you’re talking about, and you’re talking the truth and you got a nice flow, you could make it. How did living with disability in your family [his younger brothers had muscular dystrophy and died young] affect your art and aspirations? moniquita That was a big part of my life. You’re a reflection of how you came up – you can’t ever shake that. Now I’m older, I can really understand the situation. But back then I was like: damn, once a person could walk and do everything like normal and now they can’t walk no more, they can’t function or operate like they used to. That’s a drastic change. It was hard to see – it really affected me. When I did All That I Got Is You with Mary J Blige, I told her about all of that – about my brothers with muscular dystrophy, how they was here and now they are gone, along with all the other stuff I talked about on that record. When times wasn’t right – no money, living on public assistance, not being able to get what you need or want – that forces you to go robbing and stealing and selling drugs and doing all that other stuff. Because you want what everybody else got and you know that you can’t get it, because the situation inside the household isn’t too strong. It’s all a part of my history – I went through that and that’s what moulded me into Ghostface. It made me become stronger, I guess. All That I Got Is You is the song I’ve listened to most in my life. Did you find any healing through this song? How do you feel about it today? Laurenlynnr It touches me more than it did when I first made the record. I can hear how I poured some heart out on it, and my soul. It hurts. It takes me back to a place I don’t really want to see, so I don’t really perform it on stage no more, because it’ll make me mad sad, and I don’t want to mess around and start crying in front of people. Do you remember your case worker or social worker from childhood? Did this person have a positive impact on you and your family? TitMouse No, I don’t remember a social worker. When you all in the projects and everything, it just is what it is – there ain’t really no support for you nowhere. How did the BadBadNotGood collaboration album [2015’s Sour Soul] come to be? deanlearner This guy Frank Dukes, who I met at a beat battle. He’s a Canadian, too, like the guys in the band, and he put me in touch with them and produced the album. The BadBadNotGood guys were beautiful – humble, nice. A live band is always better. It’s the feeling – it’s more alive. That’s why they call it a live band – it sounds more lively! Were you guys disappointed when the sole copy of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin ended up in the hands of Martin Shkreli [the “pharma bro” who increased the price of a life-saving drug by 5,000% and was later jailed for fraud]? MrHallowWeen Very disappointed. Everybody was mad. But he won the auction and that was it. [After Shkreli’s conviction, the album was seized by the US government and sold at auction.] I just did my recordings, handed them in and that was all I had to do with it. I didn’t see no money from it. I never really heard the album, either. I’m not gonna kick dirt on it. I guess you all will get a chance to hear it, one day. I don’t know. I don’t got nothin’ to do with that album. Zero! I’m in a band with five other people. What advice would you give to help us keep the show on the road? jimihair Don’t let nobody come between you – no distractions. Because you know how it is – sometimes some people just outshine other people and then people get jealous. A group is a hard thing to keep together. You gotta hold your head, just stay focused. If it’s your goal to do music, then do it and do not stop. Because there’s gonna be a lot of hard times when it seems like it’s not moving. Are you a bigger fan of GZA’s Liquid Swords or Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx? washoutx They both amazing. Genius/GZA is my favourite rapper; him and Nas. But Cuban Linx is one of the illest “vibes” albums of all time, one of the greatest ever made. It’s on some real gangsta shit, New York street shit. That first wave of solo albums, after 36 Chambers came out, everybody was happy for each other, because you knew your time was coming, so we all supported each other. Every album that dropped was making noise; we were just in the zone. But after the second one [Wu-Tang Forever], it started getting more difficult. A lot of things started coming in to play – politics, or maybe the business started changing. Will the DoomStarks album [his collaboration with the late MF Doom] ever see the light of day? AndyJohnson Doom’s family got the music. I don’t know what they’re gonna do with it. What was Doom like to work with? He thought different. But he was really intelligent. He knew what he wanted. And he was a funny person, a good conversationalist, a beautiful soul. What has been the greatest invention of the past 50 years? Lollycopter I think about that all the time. Smartphones might be one of the greatest inventions. FaceTime and Zoom – you can just look in your phone and everybody be there. That’s just crazy. A lot of vegan food is crazy – when I was like 10 years old, I ain’t never seen no vegan stuff. Everyone’s got fat asses now, too – that’s an invention. I’m not saying that’s one of the greatest, but I’m just saying: damn. Like, I was remembering when I was younger, girls had little butts, no butts – none whatsoever. Now, everybody got a butt. You know what I mean? Where did the love of kung fu movies originate among the Clan? PhantomFlashy When we was young, they came on Channel Five every Saturday at three o’clock. And the karate movies was so dope. To go in the house, watch a movie and then come back outside and do all the karate moves? Like, yo, that was mad fun, and that’s where the love came from. What made you switch from [the Islam-influenced black nationalist movement] Nation of Gods and Earths to orthodox Islam? Sandwich The feeling when I went to the mosque to go see what the other part of Islam was about. I felt pure. Everything about me felt clean. And I realised that God is cleanliness, and that’s how my soul felt. I’m a spiritual dude, so I like to just read the signs whenever there is one. So if my soul felt like that, then my heart told me: that’s just where I belong, and that’s where I stayed. I followed my heart. You’re probably the most critically acclaimed of all the Wu-Tang MCs. Does this matter to you? Does a good review mean anything? paddybappin Every one of those guys, they’re my brothers. I grew up with those guys, I learned from them. That’s just how it is. So what critics say don’t matter, because we’re all the same. I’m just doing my job. The praise isn’t important. Ghostface Killah’s memoir, Rise of a Killah, is out now (St Martin’s Press). His new album, Set the Tone (Guns & Roses), is out now on Mass Appeal