4:21: THE DAY AFTER - METHOD MAN
There’s nothing new under the sun, and that often goes double for hip-hop. On his fifth solo disc, Wu-Tang cleanup hitter Method Man has been forced into damage control following a few misadventures in sitcoms and deodorant commercials. As such, he spends this CD blandly obsessed with haters, his own influence and the fact that he still seems to enjoy the marijuana, hence the weird mixed-metaphor title. But despite having nowhere to go lyrically, he remains a remarkably potent presence, almost solely on the basis of that burnt-charcoal voice. Meth is best when his hooks are ripe but his sound is grimy, as he is on the Erick Sermon-produced “Problem” and the long-leaked “Say,” which employs a sparkling sample from Lauryn Hill. When he relies on expensive-sounding, gussied-up tracks by producers like Scott Storch (”Is It Me”), he’s just playing catch-up. Billboard
