Following up last year's mighty Fishscale, Ghostface Killah dropped The Big Doe Rehab on the first Tuesday of December, but it wasn't necessarily his day of choice. If Ghost could have had it his way, he would have been releasing this album the week before Christmas making sure that his album was the one Hip-Hop heads would surely want for the holidays. But what has transpired behind the scenes in the last couple months has made Mr. Toney Starks a little bitter to say the least. Ghostface's Wu-Tang compatriot RZA finally put the finishing touches on Wu-Tang's long in the works 8 Diagrams and decided to drop it December 11th(it's also reviewed here this month); the week before Big Doe was scheduled and stealing the thunder from one of his Wu-Tang brothers. Understandably miffed, Ghostface decided to bump up Big Doe two weeks to preemptively steal back some of the thunder (and most likely, consumer dollars) away from the RZA.

If The Big Doe Rehab would have lived up to the mastery of Fishscale Ghostface wouldn't have to concern himself with trivialities like release dates. Unfortunately however, Big Doe doesn't match up to past classics like Ironman, Supreme Clientele and the aforementioned Fishscale. The second half of Big Doe is terribly inconsistent and the production isn't as top notch as past Ghostface records, but the first half of Big Doe is excellent and worth owning alone. "Toney Sigel A.KA The Barrel Brothers" featuring Beanie Sigel trading verses with Ghost is the banger of the bunch and "We Celebrate" features one of the most hysterical lines of the year with Ghostface's hunny asking "What's that in your pocket Ghost?" he responds "A dill pickle." She retorts "Not that!" and he proclaims "Oh, that's the 45 stainless nickel." The Big Doe Rehab does have plenty of good Hip-Hop to start out the gate with, but its weak second side will keep it from being remembered as one of his best.