--- title: "Ghostface Killah’s Bulletproof Wallets turns 25; its 76,000 first week trailed Supreme Clientele by 58,000" url: https://badiyaa.com/ghostface-killah-bulletproof-wallets-25-years/ published: 2026-11-14T05:36:00+00:00 modified: 2026-11-14T05:36:00+00:00 section: Entertainment publisher: Badiyaa --- # Ghostface Killah’s Bulletproof Wallets turns 25; its 76,000 first week trailed Supreme Clientele by 58,000 Ghostface Killah's Bulletproof Wallets turned 25 on November 13; the 2001 album sold 76,000 copies in week one and peaked at No. 34. Ghostface Killah’s Bulletproof Wallets turned 25 on November 13, and its opening week tells the story of a hard follow-up. The Wu-Tang Clan rapper’s third solo album sold 76,000 copies in its first week in 2001 and peaked at No. 34 on the US albums chart, a long way below the No. 7 debut of Supreme Clientele just 21 months earlier. Released by Starks Enterprises and Epic Records on November 13, 2001, the album still reached No. 2 on the US R&B/Hip-Hop albums chart. The gap was on the main chart, and in the sales. ## Bulletproof Wallets against Supreme Clientele Set the two albums side by side and the contrast is sharp: - **Release:** Supreme Clientele on February 8, 2000; Bulletproof Wallets on November 13, 2001. - **First week:** 134,000 copies against 76,000, a drop of 58,000, or about 43 percent. - **US albums chart peak:** No. 7 against No. 34. - **R&B/Hip-Hop albums peak:** No. 2 for both. - **Running time:** 64 minutes 10 seconds over 21 tracks against 46 minutes 38 seconds over 16, about 17 and a half minutes shorter. Supreme Clientele went Gold within a month of release and is still ranked among Ghostface’s best work alongside Ironman and Fishscale. Bulletproof Wallets had a tougher assignment: following a record that critics treated as a rescue for the whole Wu-Tang solo run. ## Raekwon, RZA and an early Alchemist run The credits show who Ghostface leaned on. Raekwon appears on four of the 16 tracks: “Maxine,” “Flowers,” “Never Be the Same Again” and “The Hilton.” RZA produced five, including “Maxine,” “Flowers” and “Walking Through the Darkness,” which samples Bobby Womack’s “Across 110th Street.” The quiet headline in the credits is The Alchemist, who produced three songs: “The Forest,” “The Juks” and “Street Chemistry.” In 2001 he was still years from the run of full-album partnerships that made him one of rap’s most in-demand producers. Wu-Tang’s own Mathematics added two more, “Theodore” and “Strawberry.” Badiyaa covered his new collaboration this month, [Mathematics’ song 7:Thirty with U-God and Nems](https://badiyaa.com/mathematics-wu-tang-u-god-nems-7-thirty/). The two singles pointed at a smoother sound. “Never Be the Same Again,” released September 4, 2001, paired Ghostface and Raekwon with R&B singer Carl Thomas. “Ghost Showers,” featuring Madame Majestic, followed on November 22 and samples “Sunshower” by Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band. ## A soul record hiding in a Wu-Tang album That soul streak runs through the sample list too. The intro borrows from the O’Jays’ “Stairway to Heaven,” “The Hilton” lifts from Michael Jackson’s “Maria,” and the short “Ice (Interlude)” uses Donny Hathaway’s “She Is My Lady.” Ann Peebles’ “Jealousy” supplies the skit of the same name, and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes turn up in the “Teddy Skit.” ## The songs that never made it The finished album was not the one Ghostface first planned. According to a 25th-anniversary retrospective, uncleared samples knocked several songs off the release after the liner notes had already gone to print, so the printed sequence did not match the disc. The best-known casualty is a Ghostface, Raekwon and Slick Rick song written as a tribute to sunlight, which was meant to open the record. “The Watch,” built on a Barry White sample, was also cut, and RZA had to replay the loop on “Flowers” when the original sample could not be cleared. Critics at the time split on what that added up to. Some heard a party record next to the usual Wu-Tang gloom; others said it lacked fresh ideas. The reviews were generally positive overall, and the album finished 2002 at No. 90 on the year-end R&B/Hip-Hop albums chart. Bulletproof Wallets arrived during a crowded stretch for the Clan’s solo catalog, sitting between Digital Bullet earlier in 2001 and Legend of the Liquid Sword in 2002 in the Wu-Tang solo chronology. For the group’s beginnings, read Badiyaa’s look at how [Wu-Tang Clan’s 36 Chambers shared a release date with Midnight Marauders](https://badiyaa.com/wu-tang-36-chambers-tribe-midnight-marauders-november-9-1993/), and our piece on [Method Man’s Tical, which turns 32 on November 15](https://badiyaa.com/method-man-tical-32-years-rza/). Bulletproof Wallets turned out to be his last album for Epic. He moved to Def Jam, and his next solo album, The Pretty Toney Album, followed in 2004. ## Further reading - [Wikipedia: Bulletproof Wallets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletproof_Wallets) - [Wikipedia: Supreme Clientele](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Clientele) *Image: Niklas Hellerstedt, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons* *This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by our Editorial Desk. [How we work](https://badiyaa.com/editorial-policy/).*