Doc's the Name
The pride of Newark takes a slow rumble through hip-hop's history on his fourth album, jacking whatever beats he takes a shine to: Ice Cube, Audio Two, and the Beastie Boys all get their hits heavily rewritten, and on the closing Roni Size collaboration, "I Got A Secret," he invents a dazed, earthy style of drum 'n' bass rhyming. As the title suggests, there's some conceptual/identity overload going on here, but Redman's spilling over with sly turns of phrase and goofy allusions (as well as gratuitous chickenhead/baby-mama baiting), and his Def Squad teammate Erick Sermon lightens up on his trademark swampy boom, giving himself more room to cram his word hoard into. Every imaginable space is full of blunted puns, fleeting samples, and yelps of "Yo!"--Douglas Wolk