Album: 4:21 - The Day After
Producers: Erick Sermon, RZA, etc.
Release Date: August 29, 2006
Review: Coming just two years after 2004's disastrous Tical 0: The Prequel, Method Man's fourth solo LP (fifth if you count his and Redman's Blackout!) is a huge step up in every aspect. As I noted in my Map of Shaolin retrospective a couple months ago, Tical 0 sounded more like a commercial for Def Jam records than a Method Man album. It had out-of-place guest stars, it was overproduced and came across as way too commercial. Fortunately, on 4:21 - The Day After, Method Man took the wheel back and steered the ship back on course. No P. Diddy, no Missy Elliott, no Ludacris, no Kevin Liles and fewer producers overall make for a more cohesive hour of rap.
The intro track is a short-but-sweet two minutes 11 seconds, and just features one long verse with an ending hook, but it's on fire. He addresses the criticism of himself and Tical 0 no fewer than three times, too, with lines like "Look and listen, guess who coming up? / And y'all was dumb enough to think that Method's number's up," "If Def Jam is deaf, then start reading my lips" and "How could you ever say that I'm washed up when I'm the dirtiest thing in sight?" It's a good way to acknowledge a misstep and move on right. It's followed immediately by "Is It Me?" from producer Scott Storch. The high piano notes and mid-tempo drumbeat lay the groundwork for the first 1/3 of the album (roughly six tracks) to sound much darker and more "street" than anything on Tical 0, and Meth takes the opportunity to spit quick internal rhymes throughout the song ("Until these rap niggaz stepped up, checked up, man this game is messed up / Next up, you know what it is, don't get it F'ed up" etc).
"Problem" and "Somebody Done Fucked Up" sound just as solid, produced by longtime Method Man producers Erick Sermon and Havoc. Both first worked with Meth on Tical 2000: Judgement Day and Erick Sermon brought plenty of live beats to Blackout!, so it's little wonder they both appear here. Sermon's drum loop on "Problem" is very RZA-esque, piquing on the snares.
The first big standout track to me is "Fall Out," with music by Kwame. I know I said earlier that 4:21 has fewer producers at the end of the day than Tical 0 did, and I've already named four producers across four tracks, but things settle down later on and Erick Sermon and RZA produce eight of the album's 17 songs (almost half the album) between the two of them. Getting back to "Fall Out," the wall-shaking bass drum and sonar snare are the backbone for what's about the phattest music on the album. There's a quick ascending-and-descending harpsichord line, police sirens, echoing hype vocals in the background and, above all, a genuinely eerie two-chord keyboard line that permeates the track. It also doesn't hurt that the Ticallion Stallion himself busts some seamless braggadocio rhymes across the track that fit perfectly with the music. "Here we go again herb smoke blowin' in the wind / Cops chasin' wanna put him in the pen / And the day he leave the game yo he going in the Benz / On them 24's lookin' like he rollin' in the rims."
The album's first guest spot belongs to Ol' Dirty Bastard, nearly two years after his death, on "Dirty Mef." There are tributes to him all over the album, from the cover (check the bottom of the number two in the pic above) to the pic of Method Man and Dirty acting the fool behind the disc in the album's inner back cover. Given that, it's good to hear that his verse (which is a full verse, not the quick four-line snippet on Fishscale's "9 Milli Bros.") is as solid as his best tracks from Nigga Please. The only odd bit is that he repeatedly sings "Fuck you" on a couple parts of the track, but what's strange is that it sounds really cut together.
RZA co-produces "4:20," which features Streetlife (who's been appearing on Wu albums for a long time now, especially Method Man's last two) and Carlton Fisk from Housegang (who featured heavily on Inspectah Deck's The Resident Patient earlier that same year). It's a great-sounding track, and Streetlife and Carlton Fisk hold their own after Meth's first two verses. By this point on the album, I get the impression that, much like some of U-God's better material, these are producers and beats that just fit really damn well with Method Man's style, flow and voice.
Things get a little prettier/poppier for "Let's Ride," which has Ginuwine singing the hook. It's not my favorite track, but it's not the first time Method Man has gone romantic on us. His most successful was on "All I Need" from Tical, This one doesn't do it for me, but I tend to forget it in light of the mystery surrounding the following track, "The Glide."
Now, after ODB passed, the official Wu-Tang website released a free mix of a lot of ODB tracks. I think it came out in 2005. It ranged from his best-known singles ("Brooklyn Zoo," "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" and "Nigga Please") to unreleased tracks from the album he died making, A Son Unique (tracks like "Intoxicated" and "Don't Go Breaking My Heart"). But maybe the best of the new material on the ODB tribute mix was "Skrilla," produced by RZA with one of the phattest beats I've ever heard from the Wu. The drum beat has piqued claps and fingers snapping, electro bass synth and plenty else to keep your ears entertained (behind some of ODB's most cohesive lyricism since his first release). Fast forward a year or so and "The Glide" has the same music, but polished up and quieted a bit. It's still a great beat, but the Dirty version is...well...dirtier. The other mystery with "The Glide" is that U-God provides a quick (eight-line) verse between Raekwon and Method Man, but he isn't credited on the back (the tracklist reads "The Glide feat. Raekwon & La the Darkman") or in the booklet (the liner notes read the same for the track name and there's no L. Hawkins (U-God's birth name) in the writing credits). Not hatin', because it's still a tight track, but what the fuck is going on here?! Raekwon kills it, coming out the gate with his best rhymes at the beginning like usual ("From out the air space I'm rockin' leather pants in the 10th grade / My pen blaze, now we in the wind gate, killin' haze") and U-God sticks with his established style ("We got them anthems, we handsome and raw / All day, cops harass but we laugh at the law"). La the Darkman (who we know from Think Differently) only provides the hook.
Moving on, "Got to Have It" uses the increasingly familiar sound of latter-day Wu: a quick pitch-raised vocal sample over a mix of clean hip-hop and old-school live instruments (in this case, a plucked guitar). Erick Sermon produces again here and on the next track, "Say," which features Lauryn Hill singing a couple lines from Bob Marley's "So Much to Say." It's a pleasant-sounding laid-back song about music critics dissing Method Man, but (like its predecessor and "Let's Ride") results in a much, much softer sound than the first six or seven proper songs led us to expect. It's a bit jarring, but by no means bad.
Phat beats return on "Ya'Meen," which features bizarrely awkward verses from Fat Joe and Styles P before making room for the RZA-produced "Konichiwa Bitches." As you probably guessed, this track gets its name from the hilarious Chappelle Show skit with the race draft, in which Chinese delegates draft the Wu-Tang Clan to be Chinese from now on instead of black. The title is used extensively throughout the hooks, in the form of a sample of GZA saying "Konichiwa, bitches!" after being drafted by the Chinese. It's not RZA's best beat, but a catchy hook ("NYC is all I see / ODB nigga RIP / This Killa Bee's on your M-I-C / You want it all then y'all like me") comes between consistent - if not legendary - verses by Meth.
Inspectah Deck and Streetlife guest on "Everything," produced by Allah Mathematics. It's a great dark sound overall, and every emcee is on point, but it takes a couple listens to get back into after the lukewarm previous tracks. Its follower, "Walk On," features Redman and has RZA and Erick Sermon on assistant production behind Versatile. Points to it for a standout rock sound (electric guitar and lo-fi live-sounding drums) and compelling/weird time signatures. Usually it stays in 4/4, but between verses is a three-beat "hook" with a sample of someone saying the name of the track.
The album wraps up with another romantic track, "4 Ever," produced by "Fall Out"'s Kwame (although the music is considerably lighter and brighter here). But first, there's the last real banger on the album: "Presidential MC" featuring Raekwon and RZA, produced by RZA. It's definitely RZA's best beat on the album, with a swelling bass end that sounds like sampled and tweaked cello, ominously laying over a clear kick-kick-snare beat. It's as intimidating a sound as "Borin' Convo" from JJ Doom's Key to the Cuffs. Raekwon is better here than on "The Glide," laying out some really intricate rhymes. Check 'em:
"Them red beams is coming, losers
Got to walk the plank, users
With Uzi's on 'em, you move, you gettin' spanked
Shank broilers banked, alcoholics ranked ballers
They should call us, I rock mad ice like a walrus."
Legacy: 4:21 was received much more favorably than Tical 0, and with good cause. It's just a better album from start to finish, despite a couple less impressive tracks. I'm not as sold on the happier-sounding songs like "Let's Ride" and "4 Ever," and there's a bit of a lull two-thirds into the album, but all in all I think it's a serious win for Method Man. It topped out at #8 on the Billboard 200 and it's a clear bounceback from its troubled predecessor. Plenty of my favorite bands have had a dud in their discographies, so I can't begrudge Meth's whole career for Tical 0's sins. All said and done, by 2006 he'd released a legendary record (Tical) and three others that I really love (Tical 2000, Blackout! and 4:21). Nine years later, this is still Method Man's last official "solo" album, although he and Redman compose the majority of Blackout! 2 in 2009; Meth is also one-third of the short album Wu Massacre with Ghostface and Raekwon; and Method Man features really heavily on the latest Wu-Tang album, 2014's A Better Tomorrow. All in good time. For now, enjoy the sound of the resurrection of Method Man's career.
Recommended Tracks: Fall Out, Everything and Presidential MC.
