An Ode To Redman, The Hip-Hop Court Jester

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In the music video for "Time 4 Sum Aksion," the second single from Redman's debut album, you don't really get much of the zany personality that would go on to make him a cultural icon over the ensuing decades. Redman emerged first as a hardcore rapper, combining street tales and golden age hip-hop swagger with reggae and Parliament Funkadelic attributes. On 1992's Whut? Thee Album, the fresh-faced kid from Newark is full of outlandish, aggressive bravado, backed by one of rap's production heavyweights, Erick Sermon. It makes for an album that is sonically adventurous, sampling a range of artists that includes James Brown, Funkadelic, and the Mary Jane Girls, all the while bringing raw and punchy pulp fiction the whole time. He is every bit deserving of being prime Mike Tyson's ring entrance music.

Before he and Method Man became a team that took over pop culture, Redman, along with Warren G, was credited as one of the men who saved Def Jam. The label had fallen on hard times after their '80s heyday, with other independent and even major labels investing in rap and surpassing Def Jam entering the '90s. But with the emergence of Redman, and the success of his first two albums, Def Jam regained its relevance and revenue, kickstarting another golden period. Redman was not always having the best time though, as evidenced on his followup album. "I was doing a lot of drugs on Dare Iz a Darkside," Redman once said of the recording process. "I swear, I have not played [it] damn near since I did it. Seriously! I was so lost, I was so fucked up during that album." In spite of his inability to revisit it now, it became an even bigger seller than his debut.

Like many of his fans, I really like Dare Iz a Darkside. What makes it so appealing is how he smoothed out the raw edges of his style on the debut without compromising his character. Whether because of the inhibition of the drugs or just him growing into himself, more of his personality and creativity pops out, and the funny Redman comes more to the fore. He combines the sensibilities of Funkadelic and East Coast hip hop with all the comedy and character work of a Richard Pryor record.

It's not that Redman is a comic rapper or that his wackier aspects are the sole attraction, but there is an inhibition to Redman's personality that makes him a perfect persona, even when he's rapping about some gnarly shit. Listening to him is like having your funniest friend over, cracking jokes on your couch. This dynamic is most potent when he's with Method Man. Incidentally, they also bring out the best raps out of each other. The two attributes work in unison. Very few people were truly made for both MTV and BET like these two.

Speaking of MTV, the Redman episode of MTV Cribs was what we'd call a pre-internet viral moment—a segment everyone saw and had to talk about. At the time, at least for us kids, the joke was that Redman had such a shitty house on this show full of rich superstars in big mansions, that no one could decide if he faked it as a bit or not. As an adult, I realized the joke was actually that he was probably the only person willing to show his actual home on that show. That's Redman. There's always layers to the bit.

That era of personality-led rap is one I've really come to miss. The guy who wasn't taking this all so seriously. The guy who wanted to smoke and make jokes while still rapping his ass off. Rappers of that lineage include Redman, Busta Rhymes, Missy Elliott, Ludacris, Field Mob. These kinds of artists thrived in the medium of the music video, wedding all aspects of performance to build a vivid world that was sonically great, visually interesting, and almost always hilarious. It cannot be said enough how much George Clinton fathered this whole style.

Few rappers today follow in that tradition. To list some of them: Tyler, The Creator, Doechii, Westside Gunn, Kendrick when he's on a Baby Keem record I guess. Otherwise things are so serious and maudlin nowadays, even amongst people who are capable of having fun, like Lil Uzi Vert, Travis Scott, or Drake. Drake used to love punchlines and he'll probably never do that now. You still have charming, funny underground rappers like Eem Triplin and El Cousteau, but for the most part rap is a lot more inwardly vulnerable and outwardly violent.

This isn't meant to be a complaint about rap today, but it is a reminder that a healthy genre needs room for all kinds of creativity. And while the look of rap has gotten incredibly creative and wild, the music isn't always following. There's a lot today's rappers could learn from the humor of a Redman or a Ludacris.

When you saw Method Man and Redman together, it was easy to imagine them as perfect stars for their own weed movie, their own sitcom, and their own prank series. Putting together two outrageously charismatic and funny people is always going to be a recipe for success. They have a Beavis and Butthead quality to them, as referenced directly in their video for "How High." But they were dynamite rappers, especially Redman. Redman's third album Muddy Waters is probably his masterpiece, a perfectly smooth production bed over which Redman lays the best raps of his life.

Red is a rapper's rapper. He never sold the most, going gold consistently but platinum only once. But his people loved him. Whether you found him through his music, movies, Cribs, or even just through Christina Aguilera's "Dirrty," to be introduced to him was to be instantly charmed. He was one of the only artists who could hang with both Biggie and Tupac during the East-West feud. He was everything you want in a rap star. And he's still at it, not necessarily at the center of rap anymore, but forever dependable to get a great, funny bar off.