Method Man breaks down his 25 most essential songs @ Complex
Method Man Breaks Down His 25 Most Essential Songs
BY INSANUL AHMED | OCT 19, 2011 | 1:44 PM
Method Man is a great rapper who gets a bad rap. Despite being one of the most prominent East Coast emcees of the '90s and the first breakout star of the Wu-Tang Clan, he's often accused of being an underachiever who complains too much. "Eff a rap critic," he once proclaimed on wax. "He talk about it while I live it."
Yet, the fact remains: Tical had an incredible run during the '90s. One of the main architects behind Wu-Tang's classic debut, Enter The Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers, he was one of the few rappers who worked with both 2Pac and The Notorious B.I.G. Meth even collaborated with Mary J. Blige to make the greatest hip-hop love song of all time, "All I Need (Remix)." Needless to say, the man's catalog ain't nuthing ta fuck wit.
With Johnny Blaze headlining the Smokers Club Tour it seemed a perfect time to jump on the horn and chop it up about how some of his classic songs came together. Altough he's often had the reputation for being crabby during interviews, he showed Complex much love.
Method Man came across as a thoughtful, mature O.G. with lots to get off his chest and a treasure trove of Shaolin secrets to share—from meeting Pac for the first time while high on shrooms, to how the flooding of RZA's basement impacted the making of his solo debut, to who actually wrote the majority of Ol' Dirty Bastard's first album. So get your mind right, and prepare to learn the Method behind the madness.
As told to Insanul Ahmed (@Incilin)
Wu-Tang Clan “Method Man” (1993)
Producer: The RZA
Album: Enter The Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers
Label: Loud
Method Man: “RZA and me were in his house one day and he was making beats. That’s when he made the ‘Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuthing ta F' Wit’ beat and he made the ‘Method Man’ beat. I happened to be there first, so I got to jump on it first. I had wrote this rhyme after I heard the Michael Jackson song [“Come Together”]—it was a remake of The Beatles song—it just fit perfect with the whole beat and everything, so we just put that shit down.
[The torture skit] ] was some block shit that we used to do because when dudes was snapping, a lot of personal shit would come out and dudes would get angry behind that shit. You’d be amazed at some of the mother jokes.
“I didn’t have an extensive record collection but I always grew up around music so I have an extensive memory of records. Even if I didn’t know the words to the song, I had my own version of the words. I said ‘Move it on your left! Ah!’ I was supposed to say ‘Set it up on your left! Ah!’ But that’s what it sounded like in my memory.
“When I did ‘Method Man,’ the way I got the hook part was half of it was Michael Jackson’s remake of the Beatles joint, and the beginning was a mixture of Hall & Oates, ‘Method of Modern Love,’ and the ‘Man’ part came from ‘Music Man’ by Masta Ace.
“That was just me making the record in my head. I was sampling it in my fucking head and saying it like it would be sampled. The ‘Hey, you! Get off my cloud!’ That’s Bootsy Collins. It just fit because we were talking about getting high.
“[The torture skit] ] was some block shit that we used to do because when dudes was snapping, a lot of personal shit would come out and dudes would get angry behind that shit. You’d be amazed at some of the mother jokes that come up. When you do it [like the Chef and I did it], you saying the most outlandish shit in the world knowing damn well nobody gon’ really do shit like that to you. But it’s funny at the same time, just some of the shit niggas think of.
“That’s just something we can call our own. It started on the block. We would have movie night—this is when VCRs got big [and TVs were] really heavy—and we would get a bunch of dudes together with three dime bags of weed and we’d all smoke it and watch a movie on VHS. After the movie was over, dudes would still be high, so dudes start geeking and snapping on each other. That’s where all that shit came from.
I remember watching the ‘Method Man’ video on TV. I was eating white rice with ketchup on it. No food in the house. I think it was Thanksgiving too. I was feeling bad like, ‘Damn, this shit is not popping. This fucking rap shit is weak.
“We were just saying it off the top. We was just going in there, just whatever stuck. The same way with the rhymes. You go up in there and you spitting shit and if it didn’t work, you had to go. Every now and then, you had that shit that just gelled so well ya had to keep it.
“[Getting a solo song] just happened. In the same breath, GZA had his solo joint on there too. I don’t know why RZA did ‘Method Man’ first. I guess it was a sign of the times and what people were actually listening to. Leaders [Of The New School] and a few other groups [with] that frantic style where it was just all over the place were popular at that time. I guess RZA being who he was and being so in tune with what the flavor was, he was like, ‘Yeah. We gonna put this ‘Method Man’ joint on because this is something nobody has ever heard before.’
“I remember watching the ‘Method Man’ video on TV. I was eating white rice with ketchup on it. No food in the house. I think it was Thanksgiving too. I was feeling bad like, ‘Damn, this shit is not popping. This fucking rap shit is weak.’”
Wu-Tang Clan “Protect Ya Neck” (1993)
Producer: Prince Rakeem (The RZA)
Album: Enter The Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers
Label: Loud
Method Man: “RZA came to us and said, ‘I’m doing this record. I wanna do this record with all of ya.’ Wu-Tang was supposed to be just him, Ol’ Dirty, and GZA. All of us collectively, was just gon’ be on the posse cut. ‘Protect Ya Neck’ was supposed to be the posse cut. So, everybody that showed up with $100 got on the record.
Wu-Tang was supposed to be just [RZA], Ol’ Dirty, and GZA. We all paid our $100 to get on the joint to pay for studio time. Niggas was hustling on the block at the time, so $100 was like sell 10 cracks and you in.
“But it wasn’t just anybody, it was dudes that fucked with each other. Every Friday we’d be up in RZA’s house making joints. Dirt Dog and GZA came about later on. GZA was already established, so niggas wasn’t doing songs with GZA like that. It was just the Park Hill niggas: myself, Chef, U-God every now and then, Inspectah Deck. Streetlife was there back in the day too, he was on this shit named ‘6 Man Symphony.’
“We all paid our $100 to get on the joint to pay for the studio time. Niggas was hustling on the block at the time, so $100 was like sell 10 cracks and you in. That’s how that song came about.
“As far as the order went, I don’t know how that shit happened but it just happened. We all went in there one after the other after the other and it just fit. It wasn’t no ‘Go back in and put his verse here and move his verse there.’
If anything had RZA’s stamp on it, those sound effects over curse words did. That’s the whole reason why Prodigy got so much flack over using that shit. That’s something nobody ever did before so it definitely had RZA’s stamp on it.
“Instead of saying, ‘Make me cough,’ I wanted to be different so I said, ‘Make me [Cough].’ I just felt like saying it like that. It was myself, a MC named King Just, and a few others who used to use sound effects in our rhymes. It was a Park Hill thing.
“[As far as the sound effects on the beat], none of that shit was there at first. After the song was done and we heard it, I heard all that shit. You know why [RZA] did it? Because of curses and for edits. The kid’s a genius.
“If anything had RZA’s stamp on it, those sound effects over curse words did. That’s the whole reason why Prodigy got so much flack over using that shit. That’s something nobody ever did before. Next thing you know, you see them on everybody’s fucking record.”
Wu-Tang Clan “C.R.E.A.M.” (1993)
Producer: The RZA
Album: Enter The Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers
Label: Loud
Method Man: “‘C.R.E.A.M.’ was the one that really put us on the map if you wanna be technical. I wasn’t there when they recorded ‘C.R.E.A.M.’ I came in after the fact. RZA was like, ‘Put a hook on this song’ and I put a hook on it. That’s how it always went. I liked doing hooks.
“The hook for that was done by my man Raider Ruckus. We used to work at the Statue of Liberty and when we were coming home we used to come up with all these made-up words that were acronyms.
The hook for that was done by my man Raider Ruckus... We had words like ‘BIBWAM’ which meant, ‘Bitches Is Busted Without A Man’ and all this other crazy shit... You can’t do shit like that unless you got a brain in your fucking head!
We had words like ‘BIBWAM’ which meant, ‘Bitches Is Busted Without A Man’ and all this other crazy shit. Raider Ruckus was so ill with the way he put the words together. We would call money ‘cream’ so he took each letter and made a word out of it and killed it the way he did it.
“Something like that had never been done before as far as a hook or even a way of speaking. This is just showing and proving that we paid attention in class when we was kids. You can’t do shit like that unless you got a brain in your fucking head! You got to have some level of intelligence to do something like that.
“The best acronym for a word that I heard was ‘P.R.O.J.E.C.T.S.’ by Killah Priest. He said ‘People Relying On Just Enough Cash To Survive.’ And he’s the one that came up with ‘Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth,’ the acronym for B.I.B.L.E. This ain’t no fluke shit man.
“There’s a reason you got millions upon millions of fucking kids running around with Wu-Tang tattoos. You don’t just put something on your body permanently unless it’s official. At that time, when you’re coming out brand new and representing where you come from, everybody from that area wants you to win because they win. That’s what it was like for us.
“We were the only dudes from Staten Island doing it so everybody from Staten Island wanted us to win. Not just dudes from Staten Island, but dudes from Brooklyn too because they had peoples in the group too. Then it was just grimy niggas who loved to see real shit, saying, ‘We riding with them Wu-Tang niggas. Fuck all that shiny suit shit!’ That ain’t no take on Puff, a lot of niggas was wearing suits and shit man, but that ain’t us.”
Wu-Tang Clan “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing ta Fuck Wit” (1993)
Producer: The RZA, Method Man
Album: Enter The Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers
Label: Loud
Method Man: “That was one of the records when RZA was making the beat for ‘Method Man.’ He made two beats that day: ‘Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing ta Fuck Wit’—and everybody knows that’s from ‘Underdog’ because I remember he had the CD and it had all the children’s songs on it. He just sat there and chopped that shit. He ain’t do too much to it really.
I love Tha Alkaholiks, but when we went out on the road with them, since they had a video getting burn on MTV, Cali, and all that, they were getting more love at the in-stores. They had displays up for them and shit. All we had were them little stickers that we were giving out to niggas.
“RZA may dispute this, but I remember it vividly: I told him to use the Biz Markie beat part. I told him to put that beat underneath that shit. Those two beats were made that same day and I rhymed on both of them.
“I forgot what the rhyme was that was on the original ‘Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing ta Fuck Wit’ beat, but that was a solo joint that I did too. He turned it into ‘Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing ta Fuck Wit.’ It was either that one or ‘The Ice Cream Man Is Coming.’ I was getting it in that day.
“At that point in time in my career, that’s all I wanted to do. It wasn’t like bang out as many as we can at this time. It was like, ‘Yo, what time we going to the studio? I’ll be there. I got a $1.50 in my fucking pocket! I’m hopping the fucking turnstile and I’ll get there.’
“[After all the songs started coming out] things didn’t change overnight. It was still a grind. We saw the pitfalls. There was a lot of shit going on. We had to whip some ass on the way up. That’s real shit. And we were getting treated like second-class fucking citizens.
I hated hustling. You didn’t just have to worry about getting locked up, you had to worry about getting shot by a jealous-ass nigga that just want your spot or getting stuck up by niggas that don’t think you carrying. Motherfuckers will make you kill them because of the simple fact that they pressure on you in the ’hood. It’s like, ‘We ain’t eating? Ain’t nobody fucking eating.’ It’s just bad. Hip-hop saved a lot of niggas man.
“I love Tha Alkaholiks, but when we went out on the road with them, since they had a video getting burn on MTV, Cali, and all that, they were getting more love at the in-stores. They had displays up for them and shit. All we had were them little stickers that we were giving out to niggas.
“We knew that it would be a grind but it was a whole lot better than what we were doing before that. I hated hustling. That shit was a pain in the ass in itself. You didn’t just have to worry about getting locked up, you had to worry about getting shot by a jealous-ass nigga that just want your spot or getting stuck up by niggas that don’t think you carrying.
“Motherfuckers make you shoot them. I’m serious! Motherfuckers will make you kill them because of the simple fact that they pressure on you in the ’hood. It’s like, ‘We ain’t eating? Ain’t nobody fucking eating.’ It’s just bad. Hip-hop saved a lot of niggas man.
“Everybody from the block just started working at the Statue of Liberty. One dude got in and brought everybody from the ’hood in that bitch. [We did] concessions and sold food. They wouldn’t let us touch the registers. The girls would touch the registers. They knew that if they let them dudes touch the registers, the fucking inmates would run the asylum. We talking like five years of my life up there. I was a working nigga!”
Notorious B.I.G. f/ Method Man “The What” (1994)
Producer: Easy Mo Bee
Album: Ready To Die
Label: Bad Boy
Method Man: “We were in Atlantic City and ran into Guru of Gang Starr. He was with this kid name Dan Smalls, whom I used to work with at the Statue of Liberty. Guess who he’s working for? Uptown Records. He’s like, “I’ve got a CD for you. It’s the Who’s The Man? Soundtrack, but I want you to listen to my man. It’s a single called ‘Party & Bullshit.’” I listened to that shit, I was like, ‘Ri-diculous. This nigga’s insane!’ But then I didn’t hear nothing of it after that.
It was like when you see a great movie and the credits are rolling, but you’re sitting there reading the credits, because the movie was just so fucking good. Even when the lights come on you’re still a little reluctant to get out of your seat, because you want to savor that experience. That’s how I felt when I heard ‘Me And My Bitch.’
“Long story short, my man Raider Ruckus was like, ‘Yo, you need to do a song with this Biggie dude.’ There goes that name again. I’m like, ‘Yeah? Why?’ He’s like, ‘He’s got this song called ‘Me And My Bitch,’ here’s the tape.’ So I take the tape, play the shit, and I listen to the record.
“It was like when you see a great movie and the credits are rolling, but you’re sitting there reading the credits, because the movie was just so fucking good. You’re sitting there until the last credit rolls out, and even when the lights come on you’re still a little reluctant to get out of your seat, because you want to savor that experience. That’s how I felt when I heard ‘Me And My Bitch.’
“Then, we did a show at The Muse and I met Biggie. I remember because he had the Big shirt on that he wore in the ‘Juicy’ video. He walked up to me and he had a scarf around his head trying to cover up the eyeball bag. He had it pulled it down and he was like, ‘Yo, I’m Big. I’m trying to do this record with you.’ I was like, ‘Yo, I’m with it. Whenever you want to do it.’ He was like, ‘Alright, cool. I’ll be in touch.’
“At that time, nobody had cell phones so we didn’t exchange numbers. But Tracy Waples—who got me my deal at Def Jam—was the bridge that got me in the studio with Big. On the way to the studio, she was playing the album and she was saying every song on there was ridiculous.
“I thought she was fucking fronting [Laughs.] I was like, ‘That’s why we don’t trust industry motherfuckers. Whatever, motherfucker. You’s an industry motherfucker. You don’t know nothing.’ She wasn’t fronting. Tracy knows her shit.
Contrary to what everybody thinks, Big sat there and wrote his verse on paper. I sat down and I wrote my shit on paper. The reason I know this is because he told me, ‘I need you to say this line right here.’ I was like, ‘What line, Big?’ He was like, ‘I’ve got more Glocks and tecs than you / I make it hot, niggas won’t even stand next to you.’ I was like, ‘I got you.’
“We get to the studio. Puffy wants to play torture. I remember I said something to him, ‘I’ll fucking liquidate all your fucking assets.’ It was a good one. Puff’s always been a cool brother. I’ve never seen him uncomfortable, with the exception of the Source Awards. [Laughs.] He kind of stammered a little when he went up there like, ‘I’m the artist that umm...umm.’
“Contrary to what everybody thinks, Big sat there and wrote his verse on paper. I sat down and I wrote my shit on paper. The reason I know this is because he told me, ‘I need you to say this line right here.’ I was like, ‘What line, Big?’ He was like, ‘I’ve got more Glocks and tecs than you / I make it hot, niggas won’t even stand next to you.’ I was like, ‘I got you.’
“After he did that with me, when I wrote my second verse, I was like, ‘Damn, now I gotta put him in my verse and shit.’ So, ‘Stop, look and listen,’ was all I had for him. That shit was done fast and shit.
“Next thing I know, I hear it on the radio. I’m like, ‘Whoa. Niggas feeling that shit? Wait until they hear this shit.’ I knew Big had some shit on his album so I was like, ‘They’re going to lose they fucking minds!’
Fuck me and Big, Raekwon and Big would have been Watch The Throne.
“Rae and Ghost weren’t really rocking with Big. But me and Big were cool. Anytime we were all in the same area and my goons would go by and not say shit to the nigga, he would still speak. That’s why I loved the nigga.
“I would go over to Big and be like, ‘What’s good, my nigga?’ and kick it with him. I knew the shit bothered him but he never showed me that it bothered him. In the same sense, I showed him that, ‘Look, that’s how certain individuals feel and shit, but me and you, we good.’ I think he respected that shit.
“If you look in hindsight, Rae’s done a fucking joint dedicated to Biggie. He’s saying in the record, ‘It wasn’t even that we ain’t like you, nigga. It was the competition at the point in time.’ That’s exactly what it was.
“They weren’t rocking with him and it was just the competition of the moment. Rae is the same type of nigga he was. If anything, I think them niggas should have done a joint together. Fuck me and Big, Rae and Big would have been Watch The Throne.
Method Man f/ Streetlife “All I Need (Original)” (1994)/ Method Man f/ Mary J. Blige “All I Need (Remix)” (1994)
Producer: The RZA
Album: Tical
Label: Def Jam
Method Man: “Wonderful story behind [the record]. I was recording my album on the road and we lived in San Francisco for about three weeks. We had little apartments out there. Being out on the road so long, I was missing my girl so I used my money and flew her out.
Being out on the road so long, I was missing my girl so I used my money and flew her out. Me and RZA had joining rooms. So he’s in there making the beat and I swear on everything I love I wrote that record right there while she was laying next to me, asleep in the bed.
“Me and RZA had joining rooms. So he’s in there making the ‘All I Need’ beat and I swear on everything I love I wrote that record right there while she was laying next to me, asleep in the bed. I hadn’t seen her in a month and I was just so happy to see her. I wrote the record, recorded the record, and wrote the hook. That’s why the original is on there like that.
“After Def Jam pops off with the album and ‘Bring The Pain’ was big, they wanted me to do ‘All I Need’ as the second single. [I said], ‘No, no, no! I won’t do ‘All I Need’ as the second single.’ RZA agreed. He said we were gonna do, ‘Release Yo Delf.’ I didn’t want to do ‘Release Yo Delf.’ RZA picked that [as the second single]. I don’t even do the shit at my shows but this Smokers Club tour, I’m gonna do it.
“We go and do the ‘Release Yo Delf’ video that Steve Carr shot. I was mad at him because I didn’t like the look and the feel of the video. It was like he was trying to recreate ‘Method Man,’ and that wasn’t gonna happen. Then the ‘All I Need’ shit pops up again.
“Lyor Cohen, Kevin Liles, and people in the office were like, ‘You need to pop off with this record.’ This time they had RZA down with it. I’m playing with them so I’m like, ‘I’m gonna need some money to do this record.’ [They asked], ‘What do you need?’ and I said a new Lexus. I was just playing, I had a car already. But they shelled it out.
The first time I met Mary. I got invited to Biggie’s gold party at the Roseland Ballroom. They got footage of that on YouTube. I had the big afro and the brown leather coat, we was bums. We ain’t give a fuck. [That’s] Staten Island for you. I met Mary that night and she told me she wakes up to ‘Bring The Pain’ every goddamn day. I was like, ‘Well shit, I love the shit out of Mary J. Blige!’
“Russell or Lyor had the brilliant idea to get Mary on the song. But to get Mary, you gotta go through Puffy. So now here comes the dilemma: RZA’s a producer and Puffy’s a producer. Puff wants to do his version and RZA want to do the track too. So what do we do here? How do we compromise?
“Man, I must’ve went in there and did four different versions of ‘All I Need,’ Same beats but different verses. The Puffy one and the RZA one sound completely different and the original sounds completely different than both of them.
“When we did it, it was just me, Mary, and Puff. I was spitting blood during the recording of the ‘All I Need (Remix).’ [Going in the studio with Mary], I was having all these fucking tooth aches. Right after I came out the dentist office, numbed up and everything, I went to CVS, got my pain killers prescription, went up in the studio, and was spitting blood in-between takes.
“I remember the first time I met Mary. I got invited to Biggie’s gold party at the Roseland Ballroom. They got footage of that on YouTube. I had the big afro and the brown leather coat, we was bums. We ain’t give a fuck. [That’s] Staten Island for you. I met Mary that night and she told me she wakes up to ‘Bring The Pain’ every goddamn day. I was like, ‘Well shit, I love the shit out of Mary J. Blige!’ She ain’t have to say that shit to me.
“That shit was bananas because when it dropped. When we was coming up, when all that club shit was popping, if you couldn’t dance and wasn’t on your pretty boy shit, them chicks was not fucking with you. I hate pretty boys. Pretty boys got this obnoxiousness about them. It make you want to beat the pretty off them, like scar them up or something.
Then we got the Grammy. That was cool. Mary got a few after that but I got that one. I am very proud of that award. It was Mary’s first too, so I can always say I was her first.
“I felt that song was putting me in that light. What I didn’t realize was, niggas was respecting that song as well as chicks was. The way I presented that song didn’t feel like a love song. Plus, with me in the background saying, ‘It ain’t a love song!’ trying to beat that in people’s heads helped.
“We coming in the same vain as Snoop Dogg when he said, ‘We don’t love these hoes.’ Yeah, we don’t love ’em either! Niggas could be like, ‘Fuck that bitch! Fuck that hoe!’ but in the back is his baby moms or his wife that he treats with the utmost fucking respect. We don’t treat every chick like that. Nobody wants to be treated like that, but the ones that act the part—hey, if it’s a fucking spade I’m gonna call it a spade. And if nobody holds our black women high, I do.
“I remember the phone calls and getting called up to the office. I watched how we started from doing college tours to bars to theaters to outside venue festivals to arenas off this one fucking record.
“Another thing I realized, at first there were nothing but grimy niggas at my shows. Once that record dropped, it was blond hair and silver outfits all in the front! There were a bunch of little Mary J. Blige’s running all through the damn party.
“Then we got the Grammy. That was cool. Mary got a few after that but I got that one. I am very proud of that award. It was Mary’s first too, so I can always say I was her first.
“At the end of the day, we got the record done. Puffy was happy, RZA was happy, people that got it were happy, and Lyor sat back with his cigar like, ‘See, I told you! You should’ve done this record when I told you to. You would’ve been outta here!’”
Method Man f/ Booster “Bring The Pain” (1994)
Producer: The RZA
Album: Tical
Label: Def Jam
Method Man: “[One thing about that album,] dust is a powerful drug. I was dusted when I did [the title track ‘Tical’]. I could never do it on stage when I first did it because I was dusted when I did that record. I can do it now though. You can tell almost when I’m like, ‘What’s that shit that they be smoking!’ It goes off record, it goes on record. I was gone! I just wanted that to be known.
“Anyway, ‘Bring The Pain’ was already done, I had that beat before we even did a Wu-Tang album. I had that beat for a long fucking time. Soon as I started my album, I asked RZA if I could have that beat. I think he had to remake it because all that shit got lost in the flood. So when he remade it, we went in and did the ‘Bring The Pain’ record. I loved it from day one.
Dust is a powerful drug. I was dusted when I did [the title track ‘Tical’]. I could never do it on stage when I first did it because I was dusted when I did that record... I was gone!
“[After the flood happened], we were out on tour promoting Enter The 36 Chambers. While we’re on tour, [I recorded my album]. When everybody else was going to their rooms, me and RZA was going to the studio. I always felt like my album was real pieced together, I recorded in San Francisco, Texas, L.A., everywhere.
“I was recording in some of the weirdest spots. Some of these places had mice and shit and coat hangers with a stocking cap wrapped around it for fucking popper stoppers. When we in the studio recording, on some days, like when we did ‘Stimulation,’ I couldn’t record the way I wanted to because my voice was damn near gone from performing that night.
“But the hunger was there because I really wanted to get that shit done. I was the nigga on the outside looking in so I was comfortable. I knew that they didn’t know what to expect from me, so anything that I put out was gonna work for me because I felt that it would. I had that energy and aura about me at that time, I had the upper hand. I didn’t have to live up to a first album because there wasn’t one. Everything would be fresh and new.”
Method Man f/ Raekwon “Meth Vs. Chef” (1994)
Producer: The RZA
Album: Tical
Label: Def Jam
Method Man: “When we got off tour and went home, we settled in Chung King [Recording Studios]. That’s when ‘Meth Vs. Chef’ was popping off. I remember when I did ‘Meth Vs. Chef’ I was tired so I went to rest. I was resting in the studio and when I woke up I heard my man lounging low on there and it was like waking up from a nap and hearing ‘Knocking The Boots’ and saying ‘Wow, this song is fucking hot.’
I remember when I wrote ‘What The Blood Clot,’ I was on an airplane. [Me and the Wu-Tang had] argued about some shit. I forget what, but I knew I was just mad at niggas. That whole verse I was just shooting at everybody on my team [Laughs].
“I remember when I wrote ‘What The Blood Clot,’ I was on an airplane. [Me and the Wu-Tang had] argued about some shit. I forget what, but I knew I was just mad at niggas. That whole verse I was just shooting at everybody on my team [Laughs]. I was mad as shit.
“Funny thing was, I was playing my radio on the plane and you can’t do that shit. But nobody said shit to me. I was writing to ‘It’s All In The Mind’ off Eric Sermon’s No Pressure. That’s what I wrote ‘What The Blood Clot’ off of. But on ‘Meth vs Chef,’ we wasn’t battling. It was friendly competition. The crazy shit about my crew is, shit that was fun to us, we did.
“Like usually niggas take they niggas on their birthday down to a party or whatever. One time, on Ghost’s birthday, we all went down to Stapleton with 40 oz’s and champagne and shit, and rhymed all fucking night. That’s what we would do. It started raining and we were drawing crowds and everything. Rhyme—all fucking night. [We were] just dedicated like that. We wasn’t getting no money. We just loved to do it.
On Ghost’s birthday, we all went down to Stapleton with 40 oz’s and champagne and shit, and rhymed all fucking night. It started raining and we were drawing crowds. We wasn’t getting no money. We just loved to do it.
“Coming from that perspective, I don’t know how that ‘Meth Vs. Chef’ record happened. Chef rhymed and was like, ‘Meth vs. Chef,’ and I’m like, ‘Nigga what? Meth vs. Chef?’ I think it was right after one of those sessions that the record came about.
“Later on, me and Chef always bumped heads. I guess that song was a precursor for things to come because we used to always bump heads and we disagreed on a lot of shit so we would argue with each other. He felt shit should be one way and I felt shit should be another way. It’s crazy, way after ‘Meth Vs. Chef’ he became the one I argued with the most.”
Ol’ Dirty Bastard f/ Method Man & Raekwon “Raw Hide” (1995)
Producer: The RZA
Album: Return To The 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version
Label:Elektra
Method Man: “In the early days, when we weren’t really popping off like that, I was always in the studio with RZA. So I used to be with RZA all the time after the album. I wasn’t trying to go on the block, that was a trap. So I used to take my little change and take the ferry.
“I caught the ‘Raw Hide’ joint and there was a couple other joints we did [that night]. There was a bunch of joints we did but I just wanted to spit on any joint that I liked. So it didn’t matter. If I was at the studio, I spit on it. If it worked, we kept it. That was usually everything I spit on.
Dirty’s album came out after mine. But Dirty had gotten his deal before me, he just spent all his fucking money up. He spent all his money and bought this little piece-of-shit-ass fucking car. [Laughs.] Shit was horrible.
“Dirty’s album came out after mine. But Dirty had gotten his deal before me, he just spent all his fucking money up. He spent all his money and bought this little piece-of-shit-ass fucking car. [Laughs.] Shit was horrible.
“Dirty was making his shit for damn near two years. His shit was taking long as fuck. If you listen to the album, there was so much time in between songs, that the nigga repeated the same verse three times on the same album. Three times! [Laughs.]
“That’s proof right there that this nigga was working at a snail’s pace. There was so much time in between records that this motherfucker must have forgot, because RZA doesn’t let you hear shit. Once you leave the studio, you don’t hear it anymore.
The majority of the verses on that album are old RZA rhymes and GZA rhymes. I remember GZA and ODB got in an argument one night and GZA was like, ‘Nigga most of that shit on your fucking album is mines anyway!’ ODB wrote ‘Brooklyn Zoo’ though.
“The majority of the verses on that album are old RZA rhymes and GZA rhymes. ‘Approach the school, 9:30, you’re late,’ that’s RZA’s shit, I heard that shit when I was 14 years old. That whole, ‘Easy on my balls, they’re fragile as eggs,’ niggas said that in a rap battle in fucking 1989.
“Dirty took all their shit and made it his own and GZA ain’t say shit. Most of [Dirty’s verses] was GZA’s shit. I remember GZA and ODB got in an argument one night and GZA was like, ‘Nigga most of that shit on your fucking album is mines anyway!’
“ODB wrote ‘Brooklyn Zoo’ though. I could go through the discography I could tell you which ones he wrote. Like ‘Dog Shit’ on Wu-Tang Forever? The fucking, ‘Calling me a dog/But leave a dog alone/Because nothing can stop me from burying my bones,’ I wrote that when I was 15 years old.
“The beginning of Ghostface’s verse on ‘Cherchez La Ghost,’ that’s my song ‘I Get Down For My Crown.’ I wrote that when I was 16. The first four bars, ‘Brothers try to pass me, but none could match me/No girl can freak me, I’m just too nasty,’ that’s ‘I Get Down For My Crown.’ Youtube it and you’ll find it because J-Love put all that shit up there.
Raekwon f/ Method Man, Ghostface Killah & Cappadonna “Ice Cream” (1995)
Producer: The RZA
Album: Only Built 4 Cuban Linx
Label: Loud/RCA/BMG
Method Man: “I did that the same week I did ‘Shadowboxin’.’ It was in the same spot, RZA’s basement. I’m sitting there and RZA gave me an idea. He was like, ‘Yo, why don’t we just compare chicks to ice cream? I’ve got a vision, listen. We compare chicks to ice cream, and we can make t-shirts and all that shit with different flavors on them.’ I’m like, ‘I’m hip. What are we going to call the flavors?’ He says, ‘Chocolate Deluxe, Butter Pecan Rican.’
“I’m listening to him, and as I’m listening, I’m writing them down, and I’m writing the hook. I could have said any fucking flavors I wanted to say, but those right there were the ones that RZA gave me. It was his vision, I just brought it to life.
RZA gave me an idea. He was like, ‘Yo, why don’t we just compare chicks to ice cream?' As I’m listening to him, I’m writing them down, and I’m writing the hook. It was RZA’s vision, I just brought it to life.
“I didn’t even know Cappadona was on it. I didn’t hear the finished product until after the album was done. RZA was good with that, you couldn’t get a tape from him. He wouldn’t let you take shit with you. So when you did it that night, you were trying to listen to it as many times as possible, because after that you weren’t hearing nothing else. He took the reel home with him every day.
“That was back in the days when I would even work the board. I did all the mixing and mastering on my second album. I did all the echos, the beat dropping out, and coming back in. RZA used to let me do that shit a lot. I was supposed to go in a whole different direction. It was just that towards the middle, I was like, ‘Nah. I’m not as interested as I used to be.’
“Like I made the beat to the St. Ides. song ‘Special Brew.’ RZA sampled the drums, but that’s me playing the keyboard on that original St. Ides shit. I just don’t do it often because I’m lazy. I did ‘Judgement Day’ too. I put that together. Mind you, I didn’t sample any of the music. I just put it together the way I liked it.
“What GZA and Raekwon’s albums had that my album didn’t have was True Master. True Master did a lot of joints on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx. He did songs like ‘Assasination Day,’ ‘Fish,’ a few joints.
What GZA and Raekwon’s albums had that my album didn’t have was True Master. True Master did a lot of joints on Only Built 4 Cuban Linx.
“When it was me and RZA, it was just me and RZA. RZA produced every track on my first album. Ol’ Dirty Bastard had the same shit. 36 Chambers, that was RZA’s coming-out party. Sometimes when we did verses, they just dropped into place and we left them as is. So a lot of shit just dropped into place with him.
“When he did my album he had clarity. It was like it was training. That’s the way I took it. By the time he did Rae’s album and GZA’s album, he was so focused. It was like, ‘Okay, this is how it’s done.’
“I had to work a little bit harder than everybody else because you know that the [volume on my] album sounds low. Some of the tracks were lost and had to get redone. But I crawled through that shit and came out smelling like a rose. But they definitely had that right there, and that shit worked out really well for them.”
GZA f/ Method Man “Shadowboxin’” (1995)
Producer: The RZA
Album: Liquid Swords
Label: Geffen/MCA Records
Method Man: “It’s crazy because I had put those two verses on there. GZA was supposed to put two verses on there too, but he only put one. I don’t know what happened. That’s RZA. Being in the studio, in the dungeon by himself, he’ll think the shit out like, ‘Fuck it. Let’s do it this way.’
It would just be me and RZA in the studio and I always listened to RZA. He was one of my biggest critics and my muse.
“When I made that record, that’s when my style flipped. It became something else. That record and ‘The Riddler.’ Before that, it was always uptempo shit. It was ‘Release Yo’ Delf,’ ‘Method Man,’ ‘Bring The Pain.’
“But ‘Shadowboxin’’ wasn’t that frantic shit. Music always depends on what kind of vibe you’re in. It would just be me and RZA in the studio and I always listened to RZA. He was one of my biggest critics and my muse.”
Method Man & Redman “How High” (1995)
Producer: Erick Sermon
Album: The Show
Label: Def Jam
Method Man: "We did the hook before we did the record. We were on the road together, thinking of a hook and it just came to me one night. ‘How High? High enough to kiss the sky/How sick? So high that you can suck my dick,’ I came up with that. Doc came up with, ‘Look up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane/Recognize Johnny Blaze, ain’t a damn thing changed.’ Then we came up with our rhymes and shit. That was us just brainstorming and being on the road with each other for three weeks.
“When I said, ‘Excuse me as I kiss the sky,’ That’s my version of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Purple Haze.’ When people got that in their heads, people who know music and know lyrics, when they heard that, they were like, ‘This nigga’s either a genius or just a klutz genius.’
The beauty of the first line, ‘Excuse me while I kiss the sky,’ is that it says so much. When you take a hit off the weed, and you go to blow the smoke out in a cloud, it looks like your lips are blowing a kiss. That’s kissing the sky. It’s a beautiful thing right there.
“That’s how you can tell with Hendrix and all these guys, there’s a method to their madness. The same shit was going on with me. There’s a method to the madness man.
“‘Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye,’ that came from watching cartoons with Bugs Bunny. They taught us a lot of shit. Some of these Beethoven overtures and shit, I don’t know the name of them, but I know the music and shit.
“The beauty of the first line, ‘Excuse me while I kiss the sky,’ is that it says so much. When you take a hit off the weed, and you go to blow the smoke out in a cloud, it looks like your lips are blowing a kiss. That’s kissing the sky. It’s a beautiful thing right there.
“If you ask why there’s so many of ‘How High,’ ask why there’s so many versions of ‘All I Need.’ That’s what they were on at that time. That’s why there’s so many versions of Biggie’s ‘One More Chance.’ I remember Craig Mack did a bunch of ‘Flava In Ya Ear’ remixes. He had the remix, the one for radio, the fucking original, it was just fucking madness man.
“[As far as the ‘eff a rap critic’ line,] let me tell you something: You get a bunch of people in a room to say your shit is garbage, you’re going to have 10 more motherfuckers saying it’s garbage after that. After that even if it ain’t garbage, you’re going to have another 10 more motherfuckers. The masses can get led by the few. [The rap critics] already tore me a new one five years ago. They showed me who’s got the power. I know who’s got the power.”