It was almost out of control. The audience was going insane at the Palace in Hollywood on Thanksgiving night, because Method Man was stealing the show from Redman and Mel-Low. As he descended from the big stage into the packed house, a cipher of fans formed around him. "We had to bring it to 'em," says Method of his performance, "right down there in the crowd."

And the crowd took time out of an evening of almost incessant fighting to go peacefully wild in appreciation of the man also known as the Killer Bee, the Metical. Arguably the best-certainly the best-known-member of the Wu-Tang Clan, Method Man rocked. He was kicking lyrics to people, it seemed, one by one. "I was, like, you paid your money to see me. So here I am-fuck a stage."

Later, in his room at West Hollywood's Le Montrose Hotel, he says of his pre-Wu days, "I've been a businessman since I was on the streets." There seem to be at least two personae within this 23-year-old hustler turned rhymesmith: A morbid ruthlessness still underlies Method's pursuit of happiness. His good looks, vivid imagination, and commanding personality play down his inner evil twin. "Controlled thug life" is how he describes his current modus operandi. "I come as criminal, but I ain't bringing it to nobody. I'm controlling the anger, 'cause I got a purpose now."

At this moment, though, just as the ghosts of Shao Lin (Wu-Tang slang for Staten Island) seem to be swirling around him, Method turns to jovially show off his Marvel/Image comic book collection. "They're like soap operas," says Method. "Once you start, you can't stop." His own name even has a mutant superhero kind of sound. "We started calling weed `method,' like, in '88," he explains with his intense stare and Chucky-doll laugh. "So I was the Method Man."
And the Method Man's purpose-loochi, scratch, the almighty dollar-is the same as it was three years ago when, at the suggestion of his lifelong friend, producer Prince Rakeem, Method got down with the Wu-Tang Clan. Enter the Wu-Tang: (36 Chambers) has sold almost 1 million albums, and Method's turbulent solo debut, Tical, is already pushing 260,000. To Meth, these stats translate into the security of C.R.E.A.M. "I want to get all I can," he says. "Milk this shit dry."

The two sides of Method Man have roots in the way he grew up: His parents were separated, so he traveled back and forth between Staten Island's housing projects and Long Island's suburbs (where he "sucked bad" at basketball, excelled at wrestling and lacrosse, but dreamed of being a football star). He stayed with his mom in "Dismal," he says of the Hill. "In the suburbs, you hear crickets rubbing their feet together. In the projects, we hear gunshots, or niggas-`Yo yo yo!'-screaming for a car to stop so they could make a sale."

Life on the streets of Shao Lin is what he talks about on Tical, an album he describes as "going into the mind of a nigga that done had enough, man." A combination of anger and hopelessness fuels songs like "What the Blood Clot," "P.L.O. Style," and the belligerent single "Bring the Pain." "What's real in this world? If anything, pain," Method says. "You can't disguise it. If you're hurt, you're hurt. That's why I'm saying if it's real, let me know."

What's also real are the feelings behind the extraordinary jam "All I Need," a love song dedicated to Method Man's real-life longtime girlfriend. "She was there through thick and thin," he says, "and now we're both living fat." Method says he's been through the usual bragging-about-conquest stuff. "That shit don't get you nothing but burnt. It's, like, when you find somebody you can be with, it's one love all together. And the way she treats me, I reflect on her. That's why we got such a good relationship: I'm a good man, I make her a good woman, which brings back good things to me."

So for Meth now, it's all about the good life-his career, his girl, and his money-right? "Not yet," he says. "I ain't got what I need to go yet." Method wants a job like Lyor Cohen's: Russell Simmons's partner, Cohen is chief operating officer of Def Jam/RAL, the company that Method-along with other hip hop artists like Slick Rick, Redman, Onyx, and L.L. Cool J-records for. "I want to be the mack in the back," he says with that methodical glare of his, "instead of the chump in the front."

Josh "Soul Rebel" Levine has written for Urb, The Source, and The Bomb.

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Copyright 1995 VIBE Magazine
February 16, 1995