Redman — Whut? Thee Album

In 1990, Erick Sermon meets Reginald Noble, a 20-year-old boy who has been thrown out of house by his mother since few years and who's working in a club as a DJ of the Lords of the Underground: Noble is taken under the protective wing of Sermon, which takes him on tour with EPMD, where Noble also has the opportunity to perform with them in freestyle. The boy surprises the duo, which takes him to their studio albums "Business as Usual" (1990) and "Business Never Personal" (1992), where he performs under the name of Redman. In the midst of this period, Noble signed with Def Jam and began producing his debut album, sometimes aided in production by Sermon.

The production of the album, made by Redman and Sermon, is inspired by p-funk in a mix of boom bap and hardcore funky, with many fantastic samples, a hard drum, deep rhythms and funky jams: it's a masterpiece, one of the best hip-hop productions of the year, flawless and pleasantly flowing. Lyrically, Redman is at his best ever, beautifully inspired by the East Coast MCs of the recent past: he maintains the playful mood of his friend Biz Markie, the narrative style of Slick Rick and the metric patterns of Rakim and Kool G Rap. Violence, drugs and sex are the main themes, although they're common topics for hip-hop albums, he proves to have great lyrical skills and can keep a high level of writing, even his most sexual bars aren't too annoying, revealing himself a very competent rapper, and allowing himself to spit out bars in Korean ("Blow Your Mind"). He has an excellent delivery style, aggressive, smooth and hardcore, energetic and powerful, unstoppable and perfectly fit on these funky rhythms.

The album is distributed by Rush Associated Labels (Def Jam) and Chaos Recordings (Columbia), and is a good commercial success, reaching the top five of rap records and being certified gold the year after its release. Critically acclaimed, it's rightly considered a classic debut: it started as a party album, but holds its roots faithfully on the street, it's fun and dirty, fresh and youthful, whose funky smoothness is held back by too many unnecessary skits. It's a bit underestimated due to other records released in the same period and more highly regarded by the mainstream audience, despite being qualitatively inferior. It's easily one of the best hip-hop debuts of the decade, filled with several cool cuts made by one of the best rappers of the period.

Highlights: "Time 4 Sum Aksion" (iconic cut: it's that one used by Drederick Tatum as walk-out music in his infamous Payback match), "So Ruff", "Rated 'R'", "Psycho Dub", "Blow Your Mind", "Redman Meets Reggie Noble", "Tonight's da Night". Splendid jazzy sample, jazzy-funky boom bap, perfect drum, Redman's smooth dope delivery, trembling and gloomy piano looped tightly in the background, then simple hook with almost celestial female chorus. "Blow Your Mind (Remix)", "How to Roll a Blunt", "A Day of Sooperman Lover".

Rating: 9.3/10.