Some rappers portray themselves as being so incorrigible that you either love to hate or hate to love them, but there's nothing ambiguous about Ghostface. With his easygoing demeanor, enthusiastic delivery, and general party-time vibe, he's far and away the most huggable figure in mainstream crime rap: Teddy Ruxpin with a black burner stashed under Wu-Wear fatigues. His charisma is so natural that it suffuses his music, which is probably why "Chunky" retains a modicum of interest despite being relatively uninspired.

Pete Rock's minimal beat is a turgid rehash of vintage Wu: Slinky flecks of pitch-bent keys, a fat one-note bass pulse, and an off-the-rack snare pattern. Ghost rides the beat hard and straight, mostly eschewing the off-kilter exclamations of his Fish albums. "Chunky" is a digest of familiar themes-- peace to babymamas with drama, back-in-the-day nostalgia for selling parsley to reefer fiends with an aluminum bat on the car seat, and punchliney braggadocio ("You can't box/ I seen better hands on an old clock"). He's treading water here, but he still twists off supple wordplay with a veteran's practiced ease and sounds best when he's rhapsodizing about exotic clothes, like his "aqua blue mink." He sounds worst when he's trying to sing-- mercifully, his 20 seconds of tuneless crooning close the track, instead of ruining its momentum, the best thing "Chunky" has going for it, as a chorus.