REDMAN - Red Gone Wild (Thee Album) | Review By: Conan Milne


Release Date : March 27 2007

Label : Def Jam

Rating: 4/5

 

Dub Quotable: Reggie Noble is back, and Red Gone Wild appeases six years worth of hype.

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Where is Reggie Noble? Never was that question more relevant than at the beginning of this year. After omnipresence circa the early millennium, the wicked lyricist known as Redman managed a six-year long disappearing act. With no release date in sight, there was a genuine clamor for a new LP from the Bricks spokesman. Now, Reggie finally resurfaces with Red Gone Wild, a typically sporadic opus from the Funk Doc.

Red’s return is championed on the urban electronica of first single “Put It Down.” Over Timbaland’s muffled synthesizer jolts and flamboyant drum kicks, the enthusiastic MC runs riot. “Shots are fucking up my liver,” hurls an artist perfectly content to play the carefree party-starter. It’s a role that Red has adopted several times before, and he seems totally comfortable in this guise.

Besides energizing clubs, the usual Hip-Hop topics are covered. With Redman, though, it’s all about how the eccentric rapper works with such subjects. Reggie teams with Snoop and Nate Dogg for “Merry Jane,” an unusually inspired weed dedication. The red-eyed trio each take turns praising the leaf: “If I fell in love with another drug, I’d always be broke/And then I’d never have that purple to smoke,” ponders Red, with a sly nod to the Doggystyle-era Kurupt. Over the war drums and dark, humming synths of “Suicide,” meanwhile, Red outlines the dangers of contesting him. “You can feel the Funk when the Master Flex,” accurately observes the MC.

Red Gone Wild reveals itself to be a rare album: something that old and new fans can agree upon. For every knowing, modern-day offering like the rumbling, Scott Storch scored “Freestyle, Freestyle,” there is an underground homage like the sparse “Dis Iz Brick Easy.” Soopaman Lova doesn’t break new ground conceptually, but purists will consider it a blessing just to hear a slew of wicked new punch lines. Reggie Noble is back, and Red Gone Wild appeases six years worth of hype.



 

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