Redman is the consummate lyricist’s lyricist. It’s been that way since the EPMD protégé made his album debut with 1992’s classic Whut? Thee Album.

Throughout his nearly 20 year-career, the New Jersey MC has taken his

wild, irreverent, hilarious, and at times smoked-out rhymes to the

masses. The underground MC that made good never forgot his two-f#####

‘hood star beginnings, even when he became a household name appearing on

a pop smash with Christina Aguilera (“Dirrty”) and starring alongside partner-in-rhyme Method Man in the 2001’s Hollywood cult comedy hit How High. Now the undaunted MC, who has been praised by everyone from Eminem to Ludacris, is set to drop his new release Reggie on December 7th. In between, there are plenty of stories to tell. And Redman gives more than a hit.—Keith Murphy

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“Hardcore”–EPMD feat. Redman (1991)

“It all started at this club called Sensations, which was one of the biggest hip-hop clubs in New Jersey. Everybody went to it on Friday and Saturday…even out-of-towners went there. I was Djing for DoItAll of Lords Of The Underground at the time and this was in 1990. I was cutting everybody’s record from Rakim to Big Daddy Kane and I rapped on the side. So, MC Lyte was supposed to perform one night and I was going to stay home [because I had something to do.] But they told me, ‘Nah, man. Come out.’ We went down there and Lyte ended up canceling and EPMD performed. Now when I first heard EPMD’s first joint ‘You Gots to Chill‘ and later ‘So Whatcha Sayin’?’ I said, ‘I can do this!’ Right before they performed we went to the back room and talked to them. And one of the Dj’s told EPMD, ‘Yo, he’s a DJ, but he spits too.’ So they asked me to spit and ten minutes later I’m onstage with EPMD rapping!’

My boys are looking at me like what the f### is this n#### doing? [laughs]. What is going on with this kid right here?’ Erick Sermon says, ‘Yeah, this is my new artist coming out.’ And I stopped and looked at him onstage like, ‘ Are you serious, n####? I actually walked into this s###?!!!’ The ill part about this is I was letting my boy handle the business. At the end of the show, we went to the back of the dressing room where E was giving me his number. My hand goes to meet his hand but my boy’s hand comes in between and gets the number. But I’m like, ‘Cool.’ Because he was handling my business. But let me tell you something. Within that moment that the number was being passed I saw the paper and memorized the last seven digits. I figured the area code was Long Island.

So because my boy tells me he has the number I stepped back because I’m that kind of n####. I know how to play my position…he’s handles the business, I handle the music. So the first week I didn’t even ask him if he called EPMD. But after a couple of weeks, I’m like, ‘Did you call them?’ And he’s like, ‘No.’ A couple of days pass by and he tells me he called EPMD but he didn’t get an answer yet. This goes on for months. And then he tells me he lost the number! So I ended up calling Erick myself and I didn’t get an answer. I finally reached Erick’s mom, but he was on tour. I’m like, ‘This is Doc from Jersey. Could you tell Erick to call me back?’ I finally reach E and he’s like, ‘Yo…what the f###! We were waiting for you to call.’ He told me to come to Long Island and I ended up staying with the n#### for three years [laughs]. When I appeared in EPMD’s ‘Hardcore’ song and video that was just crazy. Def Jam had these little virals back then on VHS tape. Q-Tip was another very important person to my career. He had me in A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘Scenario’ video when I was first coming out. N##### in the ‘hood couldn’t believe it. It was amazing to me.”

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Whut? Thee Album (1992)

“My first impression when I was working on Whut? Thee Album is that I had to stand out. I’m coming from the [the Hit Squad camp] of EPMD, K-Solo, and then Das EFX, who did a million back then, which was incredible. So I was like, ‘Yo, what do I have to give?’ The thing with me is I wasn’t just doing it for the money. I’m contributing to the world good music because I feel like my music could help somebody in a certain way whether it’s negative or not. So how can I get this point across my way and stand out? The music that played a big part of my life was Johnny “Guitar” Watson and Parliament Funkadelic…but it was also NWA, Ice Cube, KRS-One, and Slick Rick. I had a lot of info to give out. So that’s why I was one of the first dudes on the East Coast hitting them with those skits and that real funk. I was able to adapt to the East Coast and the West Coast because I was listening to everybody.

I had that knowledge of the West Coast feel and the East Coast feel. And I brought that lyricism. But I was also bringing a new era of [weed hip-hop] to the table. It was just what I did. Even though me and Method Man are stars we don’t promote weed; we just let people know that we smoke it. But the fans have to know that we probably lost out on a lot of endorsements because we smoke weed. But even if I knew that back then, I still would have been smoking. As far as creating that whole Dr. Trevis character for the album, that was an alter ego. It was something different that I thought was funny to me. And I’m not going to lie…I was doing a lot of m############ drugs back then [laughs]. I was a young cat and I was wilding. I didn’t have any kids until I was 27. I remember shooting the video for ‘Time For Sum Akshen.’ It was incredible. Back then we had real guns in our videos heavy [laughs]. And it was cool to show them.

The idea back then was more on a mental level, not just a show-and-tell level like it is now where I have to show you my jewels or I have to show you my car. Back then, it was about who is the wildest? Who got the wild rap style? Who has the wild hair? Who got the bangers in the video? That’s how you knew you were straight up hood about your whole outlook. Big up to DJ Twinz. Them boys were riding with me from day one and they definitely put me on hard s### as far as New York is concerned. Because them boys were banging out [in Brooklyn]. I’m not a thug [laughs]. I let everybody know that. I ain’t no killer. I love my mama and your mama.

But I definitely ran with some wild boys. So you had to be wild back then to be going from set to set and city to city like we did. I loved it. ‘Tonight’s da Night’ featured a great sample, but I never looked at the record as a real lyrical song like some of those other tracks. I looked at it like something I was having fun on and that was different. I got some records on there that I really like and that are really lyrical. ‘Watch Yo Nuggets’…on that one me and E were going at it. He had that George Clinton ‘Atomic Dog’ in there and we really went at it. And I liked ‘I’m a Bad,’ which was also lyrical. Those are some of my favorites from that album.”

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Dare Iz A Darkside (1994)

“On this album I was still definitely doing some drugs [laughs]. But there was a real chemistry with me and E. I got into it more on the production side on Dare Iz A Darkside. It was my idea to do the Funkadelic album cover (which was a nod to Funkadelic’s classic 1971 work Maggot Brain). But the overall darkness just came from something different I wanted to do with Dr. Trevis. I was living in a real dark world at that time. I was doing a lot of acid and I was seeing s### [laughs].

As far as E goes, he kind of let me go in and do what I wanted to do for the album. A lot of women hit me about that g###### album. They tell me Dare is one of their favorite albums which is the weirdest s### to me. I don’t even do ‘Can’t Wait’ at my shows today. I know that’s horrible, right? I suck. I need to be doing that s###. In fact, I hardly do anything off of Dare Iz A Darkside. I think the reason why is because it reminds me of a darker time in my life. It was a weird time. When that record went gold I was like, ‘Damn…are you serious?’

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Muddy Waters (1996)

“Muddy Waters is my album! I came into the light on this one. I left some of those drugs alone and started smoking more weed and I was in the gym. I had a kid and I started to slow down. So I was getting grown on this album, finding myself and getting more in-tuned with the rap game. ‘Whatever Man’ is one of those fan favorites. I love doing that one live. I do ‘Sooperman Luva 3’ here and there. I picked that up from my mentors EPMD who had their own [reoccurring song] ‘Jane.’ I thought it would be cool if I had a continuous story I rapped about on each album. ‘Sooperman Luva’ just ended up being one of those songs. And I always do ‘Pick It Up.’ Those are the records m############ be bumping to.”CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL LIST

Soulja Boy is still here.

Truthfully, it is a feat that may didn’t think the teen rapper could overcome when he emerged in 2007. In 2010 and two more albums, the young rapper has emerged as a leader in a youth movement and a decidedly different sound for Hip-Hop. Now 20 years old, Soulja Boy presents The DeAndre Way the latest installment in his discography. AllHipHop.com got the rapper on a number of topics. To see the video or the entire interview, scroll to the bottom of this page.

“I was in the studio with Kanye and Cudi, in New York, I was in the studio with 50 out in Cali, I was in the studio with studio with Snoop, I worked with Boi-1da and he came through and dropped like 75 beats on my hard drive. I was writing through my whole process, I was using a perspective, and I was writing on a Boi-1da beat and I just really sat there and thought about how I wanted my listeners to view that “Speakers goin Hammer” is a single that he produced and its crazy because I just shot a video like two weeks ago in Cali and I saw a edit, like rough cut from that so, I think that is going to be dope, yall look out for that.”

“I try to stay on top of my game and be a trendsetter in hip hop, you know what I mean? For me, today I woke up on the tour bus, I hopped up out the bed on the tour bus, I got fresh threw my clothes on, got my shoes together, I had to do an early morning radio show, I had to do meet and greets with DJ’s, take pictures with the fans and I was just really promoting my new music.”

Touring and recording on the run.

“I been making music and making beats, but I like been hitting the hotel and recording. I been making beats and before I went on the first official day on my promo tour, I went to Guitar Center and spent like $10,000 on equipment. Like I need the best mic, best speakers, I need this, I need that. Like I am going to be on the road for this amount of time, and Keri Hilson, she been buzzing me like “Yo I need to do this verse for me.” So I was just like look man, lets go to Guitar Center so I can be on the go recording because these people need these features, so that’s how I got this set up.”

The song on The Deandre Way that may make you cry.

“I had a lot of different listening sessions, one of the tracks, I had someone bust into tears, and one of the songs other people really congratulated me on the song called, ‘I Deserve a Grammy’ ft. Ester Dean, and it’s the last song on the album, The Deandre Way, and the production on the song is just really pictured everything that I wanted from the kick to the clap to the chords to the treble, everything. Once she stepped in the booth, and once I heard her voice, and vocals, it really just hit a nerve and made me feel a kind of way and the intro to the song is pic and you can hear the audio clip from CNN and they took and audio clip from it and you can hear the strings behind it and that’s a song that really stood out to me, I think that people will look at me on a different level as far as a lyricist and as far as an artist the way I opened up musically on that.”

“So I think if you cop my album The Deandre Way on November 30 th, look for the song, I deserve a Grammy. I took it on a more personal level. If you look at my album, SouljaBoyTellem.com, look at my second album iSouljaBoyTellem, if you look at this third album, its like I am becoming more personal and more real and telling people about my life as a human being, not as a super star. I think all my fans, I know all my fans are going to feel that.”

“November 30th is my album, I’m really pushing that, The Deandre Way, and I’m doing a mixtape called Soulja Society, and I leaked the artwork via Twitter and really got a good response from that. People are waiting to hear about that, Lil B, he is dropping a SOD album called Thraxkiss, and it’s going to be through SODMG Records, and Jbar is dropping his album 2011. My movie hits theaters in 2011. Its called “The Deandre Way” and its going to be on DVD and these people have been pitching me this movie idea for so long, and now I am letting them orchestrate my art and tell my story and let people see it on the big screen. A lot of people say ‘Soulja Boy is a one hit wonder, and he’s lucky’, and its not even about music, not even just about me, it about a success story, but its about a true story from the bottom to the top a true success story.”

Nelly has had a few beefs like his highly publicized conflict with KRS-One. There is one other beef that lingered under the surface with a rapper also known for his lyrical prowess – Eminem. But, the Eminem confusion wasn’t a conflict that would play itself out in song. AllHipHop.com asked Nelly about his situation with Eminem and how it almost got out of hand. He’s also frank about how he’s glad he’s not that wild guy anymore.

AllHipHop.com: You had a situation with Eminem a while back. Can you tell people what happened with that?

Nelly: A misunderstanding. Me being young in the game. Somebody said something that said something, and I reacted to it. Being young to the game and being real influential, and not checking to see if that’s what it was – which it wasn’t. But me, being from St. Louis. Hothead. Young kid. I got kicked out of four schools for fighting. I was just like [to Eminem], “What? Who? What’chu talking about?”

Coming in at that time with Country Grammar, you’re getting a lot of [beef], you know what I’m saying? But what people don’t understand is that when I made Country Grammar, that sh*t was gangster! I was coming “down down, baby/Your street in a Range Rover/With a street sweeper, baby/Cocked, ready to let it go.” You know what I’m saying? I didn’t change that record. The label changed that record to “boom boom/ahn ahn.”

I didn’t give a f**k. I was from St. Louis. I had a record deal, and they was gonna put this record out? Y’all can do whatever the f**k y’all want with that record. I don’t care, ‘cause y’all gon’ give me what? [holding up an imaginary check] I got this check,a nd sh*t back then, it was only like $40,000, but I didn’t give a sh*t. I was like, you guys are kidding me!

But again, that was that mentality. So, when I thought I heard something, and that something was true and someone was coming at me…I mean, I did have people coming at me at that time. I heard a lot of talk like, “He ain’t a rapper…he’s this, he’s that.” And I’m just like “Well, muthaf**ka, where ya at?”

I’m tremendously glad that that’s not my mentality now, and nothing came from it, considering if you look at how so much has happened in hip-hop from misunderstandings and things and people being influenced by the wrong things. I’m real fortunate and thankful that that’s as far as it went.