Redman

Method Man x Redman – Blackout 2

Alright ya’ll! The Starsky and Hutch of Hip Hop are back. Ten years in the making, BlackOut! 2 is the very much anticipated follow up debut to Red and Meth’s 1999 Chart Topping LP Blackout! . Now I know you all are on pins and needles, craving good music from two artists that have through the years never truly disappointed their fans. I am here to say that, yeah…its decent. It ISN’T Blackout!, but we must all take into consideration that BlackOut was just too fun to top.

Blackout 2! is probably not going to be defined as a classic, or win very many awards. But we are TRAPPED in an age, where YULE seems to be everyone’s favorite word and the only way to sell a CD nowadays is to make up a dance about something you do with your stinking leg. Red and Meth don’t fail to hit us with a bit of nostalgic TiCAL And Funk Doctor Spock while still managing to stay current, relevant, and most importantly, GOOD. Despite its length, there are a few tracks that made me reach out and press repeat.
Between a couple of tracks here and there, we are hit with skits. Now the skits remind us that we are dealing with comedians, as it has been years when there has been more than one on an album that made me giggle. If you’ve seen How High, then you know that this is true. You will chuckle, if not laugh.

After sliding past the intro rather easily, I ran smack dab into the second track I’m a Dope Nigga. A tad bit harder hitting than I was expecting, but none the less enjoyable. I’m a girl and I appreciate any song that I can blast from my po’ little Stratus and look relatively cool. I’m a nerd, it’s hard for me to LOOK cool although I am. Trust me, this song aided me, and I was thankful. Not much to be desired from the hook, and while the lyrics are mediocre, the combination of all the elements, worked for these two on this one.
Ayo! Just me calling attention to A-Yo, the third track. Now for a good hot minute I seriously thought that Nate Dawg was West Coast harmonizing, but Saukrates isn’t Nate, but sounds pretty damn close to him on this track. I like this one. Smooth and nostalgic (brass does that to me), this is your Strip cruising, cookout-esque track. I almost got up and did the bump with someone. Both rappers seemed to flow in and out of the production, neither MC trying to overpower it, which heightens the experience of it all.
City Light may JUST be my favorite track on this. This one pays homage to a legend by staying true to the very spirit of Pimp C. Sounds like something he would flow over. Bun B does what he does, SPIT. This whole track has Houston written on it, easily seeing as two of the MCs are Yankees. Chopped not Screwed but smooth

Mrs. International – Remind me of being at a basement party when you got these cats staring at you from across the room and then this song drops and it gives them just enough bravado (I refuse to say swag in 2009) to cross the room and spit lines they practiced in the mirror in the morning. Let’s go rappers that send that proverbial head nod to us female. Thanks.

Diz is for all my Smoker. First thing I noticed was the hook. The unity of the crowd lets you feel exactly how our happy cigarette smoking brothers and sisters feel about that sticky. Don’t be fooled by their relaxed demeanor or the production in the background. Smokers mean it. And Red and Meth have volunteered to be the 2009…well…they’ve always been one of the voices for the hash movements.

As always we have no problems with the chemistry of these two. Friends since they was knee high to grasshopper, there is no lack of how time and time again the spastic Red compliments the smooth grit of Method Man. Other than it being so long, (17 Tracks is almost tittering on ridiculous, so long that at one point, I contemplating dark evil things) this LP is very much Red and Meth. Nothing jumped out and surprised me, and I wasn’t reaching into my CD player to chuck this into moving traffic.

Production: B
Lyrics: C -
Overall: C+

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