I’m sitting here writing this on Thursday morning, literally barely able to contain myself. Today is a day that has been 14 years in the making. For tonight, I am going to witness a performance by two of my idols. I will be within a few feet of these dudes! IT’S HAPPENING!!!! Am I getting across that I am fucking pumped? The two men I will be seeing tonight changed my life. To be honest I never thought this moment was going to happen. With the way hip-hop was trending in the 90’s, I figured at least one of them would be dead by this point, or at the very least in jail. But things have fallen in my favor. I will finally see the two rappers that made my love of hip-hop reach epic heights. I love them separately sure, but it is the collaborations between that two that melted my young mind. This week’s ARTIST OF THE WEEK: REDMAN & METHOD MAN!!!!
Method Man got his start with The Wu Tang Clan back in 1992 when they released their groundbreaking album Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). The other week I was talking with my buddy Quinn about this record and the first time we had heard it. We both recall not really knowing what the fuck was going on. I mean, at 11 years old I heard the line from Method:
I mean oh, you check out the flow
like the Hudson or PCP when I’m dusting
Niggaz off because I’m hot like sauce
The smoke from the lyrical blunt makes me. (cough)
I literally had no clue what the hell he was talking about, but the beats and the aggression had me on board from the get go. I started following Meth’s solo stuff picking up Tical (1994) and when I first heard All I Need, I knew then and there I had found my dude. This was my favorite rapper. There was no question, his flow, voice, and rhyming schemes. I dug it all. It was fun. When I listened to it, I felt like I was included in this different world. I felt cool. I was down like four flat tires with this shit.
In the 7th grade I got my first taste of Redman when my buddy Nick Harris Gave me a copy of 2pac’s All Eyez On Me (1996), on the track Got My Mind Made Up. The song featured, Pac, Dat Nigga Daz, Kurupt, Redman, and of course Method Man.
This was the first of many Redman and Method Man collaborations. The two hit it off. So began a steady outpouring of songs from the duo, each appearing on one another’s albums. Starting of with their track Do What Ya Feel on Redman’s Muddy Waters (1996).
This was then followed with Redman appearing on Meth’s album Tical 2000: Judgement Day (1998) titled Big Dogs.
This song would also appear on their collaboration culmination. An album I put up on high with Ready to Die. It’s Red and Method’s Blackout! (1999). This album blew my immature mind. It was rap punk rock. Two dudes wildn’ out like there was no tomorrow. The very first track floors you and the rest of the record gets you movin’ on said floor. It’s loud, it’s fun, it’s fucking rad. Here’s the first track. The title track no less. Blackout!
I can’t get enough of that beat. Da, da, da, da, dum, de, dum TO MAKE YALL 
FEEL THAT! Man, I have flashbacks every fucking time I listen to this record. In junior high holding the disc man flat on the bus ride to school, with the anti-skip on. Sure that shit drains the battery, but it’s a must have. Can’t have these tracks jumpin’. No way, no how.
This album had it all. Banger tracks like the chaotic party Tear it Off
To the dark and venomous Cereal Killer
The duo went relatively quite musically after the release of Blackout! They did songs together here and there, but biggest pairing we got from them was the film How High and the TV show Method & Red.
The producer of this movie came to talk at my college way back when. I told her it was one of my favorite movies of all time. Pretty sure she thought I was fucking with her. The harder I stressed the fact that I wasn’t joking at all, the more she was offended. What are you gonna do? Some people just don’t know how to take a damn compliment.
Finally, ten years later, they released the sequel to their audio masterpiece, Blackout! 2 (2009). While I love this record, it’s missing some of the frenetic energy that was on the first album. I mean I can’t blame them. They are ten years older. Sensibilities change, but the kid in me just wanted them to come back and blow faces off. Not to say that some songs don’t do exactly that. The killer bass on the opening track I’m Dope Nigga certainly will. But my favorite is the late night cruiser jam, City Lights.
I’ve been waiting for this night for a really long time. Hopefully I can come on the podcast next week and gush about how awesome it was. My fingers are crossed. I’m breaking a cardinal rule about going to see ones heroes here I think. So what though? This show isn’t for me now. This is for 12 year old Kelly back in 1999, boppin’ his head with his big Labtech headphones, in the back of Mom’s Volvo. If I could talk to that dude, I’d tell him, “don’t worry man, you’ll get there one day.” Today is that day.
Big Hugs,
Kelly
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