An Ode To Redman, The Hip-Hop Court Jester

Welcome to Listening Habits, a column where I share the music and musical topics I’ve been fixated on recently. 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. https://youtu.be/NiZMqVXVZgA?si=rAXI9UVOQuMZXMwb

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