Track 19 from Red Gone Wild: Thee Album (2007)

Reggie Noble debuted on EPMD's 1990 album Business As Usual, and became the biggest star of EPMD's extended family Hit Squad alongside Keith Murray, Das EFX, K-Solo, and Hurricane G, among others. Redman's '90s albums benefited from a lot of production from Erick Sermon at the peak of his powers, but Redman did a lot of production himself, sometimes co-producing with Sermon or Rockwilder, who'd go on to make some huge hits, including the massive Method Man & Redman hit named after him, "Da Rockwilder." Hit Squad also eventually turned into Def Squad, a supergroup with Redman, Erick Sermon, and Keith Murray, and their one album is pretty fun. Redman's self-produced tracks include some hits ("Rockafella," "Smoke Buddah," "It's Like That") as well as as the tracks on this playlist "We Run N.Y." and "A Special Joint (Intro)," which I really wish was a full-length song because Redman sampled the Little Feat classic "Spanish Moon" for that beat and it sounds sick. 

Muddy Waters is I think the Redman album I've listened to the most and have owned on CD for the longest, but I went into making this playlist not really being sure what his best album is. And after playing things back-to-back, yeah I'd say Muddy Waters is my favorite, it just feels like the perfect midpoint between his harder darker earlier stuff and his more playful later stuff with or without Method Man. He really doesn't have any wack albums, though (I think...I never heard 2015's Mudface and it's not on streaming services today). 

I'm loathe to listen to albums that are sequels to an artist's earlier classic, but 2024's Muddy Waters Too was solid. He has made sequel songs to "A Day of Sooperman Lover" on most of his albums, and I kinda roll my eyes at some of those, but the first one with the Johnny "Guitar" Watson sample is pretty good. I remember realizing how much Eminem loves Redman when he hosted "BET's Top 25 Countdown," a great old show where celebrities would just play their favorite videos for a couple hours, and Em played so many Redman videos. You can really hear the Redman that heavily influenced Em on "Rated 'R.'" 

Meth has a couple of solo albums that sold slightly more than Blackout! but it's the biggest album in Redman's catalog. Sometimes I think they both had the potential to be more individually than the hip-hop generation's Cheech & Chong, but pretty much all their songs together are great, their friendship and musical chemistry is pretty genuine, I can't complain. I remember one time in the '90s, I said "Wait, are Method Man and Redman brothers?" and my brother responded "Well, they do have the same last name...Man." That was pretty funny.