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Method Man: A Method for Mad Success
Method Man, like the rest of the Wu-Tang, grew up in Staten Island, the trash dump and community that lies off the shores of New York City. There, he grew up in the projects, and does not like to talk about growing up supposedly because of the hard times that he experienced during it.
Btu why talk about the dirty past when the present and the future will be undoubtably wonderful? When the first Wu-Tang album came out in the early 1990s, Method Man became an instantaneous star. He had a solo Method Man song on the album after all, and always Method Man lyrics figured prominently in most all of the tracks.
More Than Wu-Tang
As anybody knows who knows Wu-Tang, their record contract was set up to allow solo Wu-Tang members to go off and create records with whomever they wanted to. The first Wu-Tang artist to do so was Method Man, none other. His first solo Method Man album came out in 1994, called "Tical." It was an instant classic under the Def Jam label. It sold as many as 1 million copies.
More importantly, Method Man became a regular fixture in the hip hop world at large. Did you know he was the only guest starring rapper on the Notorious BIG's first record, "Ready to Die"? And did you know he was on West Coast rappers' material as well, including Tupac's?
But Method Man is still first and foremost a member of the Wu-Tang Clan, and as such, he promptly returned to the group in 1997 to release their smash second album, "Wu Tang Forever," which has since sold more than 8.3 million copies. Not a bad move to return to the group, right? As before with the first Wu-Tang album, this second one was followed up by another solo Method Man album, this time called, of all things, "Tical 2000." Listen to Method Man here, and you hear a lot of talk about the end of the world and the apocalypse, which was on a lot of people's minds with the end of the eon.
More of the Same
The world did not end at 2001. And neither did Method Man and the Wu Tang's success. The Clan released two big albums in 2000 and 2001, including "The W" and "Iron Flag. Following those, the third Method Man album came out, "Tical 0," in 2004. It went gold, though some people said he'd just become another party rapper. His fourth album, the 2006 record called "4:21: The Day After," didn't have great success ever, despite the heavy duty production lined up on it, like Erick Sermon, RZA, and Havoc.
Perhaps Method Man doesn't care, because he's had some success with Hollywood as well, such as making the film "How High" with Redman, or being in "Venom" and "Law & Order" the TV show. You can listen to Method Man on video games as well, such as Def Jam: Fight for NY.
Or perhaps he's also too busy collaborating with Redman to slow down long enough to listen to critics, who he created "Blackout" with. But if you want to ask him yourself if he's just a party rapper now, be my guest.
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