The year, 1994. The album, Dare Iz A Darkside.

After the success of his first album, 1992’s Whut? Thee Album, Redman didn’t know what to do with himself — seriously. “Success happened real quick, so I was just near all over the place and damn near lost my mind on the second album,” he tells REVOLT. That second LP was Dare Iz A Darkside, a sinister release that features the New Jersey-bred wordsmith at his most wild, odd, and manic. “I was tripping out on that album.” Although it was a dark time for the rapper, the silver lining for him took place when he controlled the darkness and “formed it into music.”

In fear of going through the same spiral once Darkside earned eventual acclaim, thanks to tracks like “Rockafella” and “Can’t Wait,” Redman found a guiding light. This new outlook was provided by Redman, as he mentions, “Seeing a more brighter side of things and leaving a lot of shit I was fucking with alone.”

As we recently started doing around this time, REVOLT celebrates #FlashbackFriday with a dose of “Rewind That,” a series dedicated to throwback stories as told by your favorite artists. Last week, we had Raekwon on his time on the set of Fat Joe’s “John Blaze.” Here, Redman recalls dark times before 1996’s Muddy Waters and that one time he was a proud member of Newark’s fossil society.