There are rappers, and there are emcees. Redman is neither. He's more like your favorite emcee's favorite emcee. After a six-year hiatus and twice that amount of false starts on his comeback album, Red Gone Wild, the Jersey-bred vet is back and ready to propel hip-hop to cloud 9. Redman spoke candidly to us about Red Gone Wild, the evolution of hip-hop, his fave five emcees, and his unsuccessful attempt to flee Def Jam.
We've been waiting for this album for six years. What exactly delayed the process?
Well, on my end, there's business reasons. Def Jam was going through a "de-rooting" of the whole company. So that meant everybody that I saw on my last album is gone. We've got a whole new staff between 2001 and 200-now. Since 2001, I was venturing out doing other sh*t, with the How High(movie) jump-off. We had the TV show ("Red & Meth"). I had two beautiful kids since then.Congratulations!
Thanks. You know, it was just like a hiatus. And the evolution of hip-hop has changed dramatically since then.With those changes in the game, what type of adjustments did you have to make to keep the album (Red Gone Wild) fresh?
Um, it was basically just keeping the songs fresh. You gotta ask yourself, "What is a good album?" Is it for the moment or something that you can throw on later and it'll still be the sh*t. That's what I was going for. Like, 'OK, I can throw this on and no matter what year I did it, and a year later it'll still be bumping."Right
The new wave of sound in hip-hop with the beats more through the keyboard, more samples--you know I got mad samples on my album, too--so that was another issue. Making sure everything was correct with that. Another thing is, I could've had the album done if I was doing a regular Redman album. This time, I'm introducing Gilla House. That's why I call it Red Gone Wild, because this time I really broke the mold from what I did on previous albums. I went out and got other producers besides Rocwilder and Erick Sermon. One other thing about not dropping around 2001 or 2005, the evolution of hip-hop was heavy, man. You had to get down or lay down. And, I don't think I was ready to sacrifice my integrity, my life of work of being this kind of straightforward artist, just to step backwards and join in. I waited until people started screaming hardcore hip-hop again like M.O.P. Do You Want Some Hardcore? Now y'all want some hardcore, because now y'all motherf***ers got even white people noticing, like "Damn, what's going on with hip-hop? It don't sound the same." When people start noticing, now we want some hard sh*t. See you gotta be careful right now. And you know what, and it's f**ked up to say this but the streets got lost too. The streets don't even know what they want no more.Why do you say that?
Because the streets know that they want some hard sh*t, then again it's the streets that allow the bullsh*t to come in. First of all, I'm not complaining about hip-hop, because anything that gives a brother a job to put other people on, I love it. I don't think hip-hop is dead. I just think that the culture and the attention that give your album a hip-hop feel has been lost. You've got these young cats out here that think they're doing hip-hop, you know. Who's to say they're not? So it's like, there's not enough guys like me and you to pinpoint and say, "You know, this is what's going on. Y'all need to do this." Hip-hop is not dead, it just needs some adjustments.You know that's an interesting topic. There's been a lot of talk lately about hip-hop being art or poison. Where do you stand in that argument?
I'm standing in the...of course, hip-hop is art. Hip-hop is only poison to people that don't understand it. What is poisonous about it? It's not like we're spoon-feeding it to them like this is the only thing you have to listen to. There's like a billion other cultures of music out there. Why pick with this one?There's been a lot of talk about the images being portrayed. Some say hip-hop is homophobic and violent. Who has the greater responsibility in what's being presented as hip-hop today? The industry and label execs or the artists?
I can't say it's the artist, because we've got freedom of speech. We have a responsibility, yes, we know that. We know that we're supposed to be teaching our youths and guiding them the right way through our music. But everybody can't be no damn saviors. You have emcees that want to do that if you wanna learn about that sh*t. Me, I'm not gonna lie. Even though I'm a good guy but, hey, I smoke weed. I basically grew up on the road. I've been carrying EPMD bags since I was 20 before I got on or whatever. Only thing that I know is talking about women and smoking but, what I can let you know is, in order for you to be everywhere, in order for you to find me and get my music and see me in movies, it's because my business is tight. That's the point I get across to kids.Listen, I'm not going to tell you not to smoke, I'm not going to tell you not to do this. You have to learn on your own. What I can teach you is that you should only act a fool if your business is right.
