All 13 Guests on Redman’s Ridiculous New Jersey Rap Posse Cut “Lite It Up,” Ranked
Redman gathered practically every rapper who’s ever repped Jersey on the mic. Who came out on top?
The year 2024 was productive for older rappers, many of whom dropped good-to-great projects, reminding the world, they’re still plenty capable of melting mics. This past Christmas Eve, Newark legend Redman added his name to the pile with the long-awaited Muddy Waters Too, the follow-up to his sneering 1996 masterwork Muddy Waters. A firestarter whose sense of humor—constantly teetering between witty and juvenile—has made him a household name on record and the big and small screens since the ’90s, he’s spent most of this decade dropping singles and bombed stages, so it’s nice to hear him return to the album format for the first time since 2015’s Mudface.
For a 28-years-later sequel to an East Coast hip-hop classic, Too is energetic and fun in spurts. This is the Redman listeners remember, for better and for worse—the album is entirely too long, with 32 tracks in just over 80 minutes, and is so shamelessly steeped in ’90s nostalgia, you can practically smell the White Owl cigars and feel the FUBU shrinkwrap. Outside of “Lalala,” the latest in a long line of stellar collabs with Method Man, Too is at its most entertaining on the epic New Jersey rap posse cut “Lite It Up.”
“Epic” isn’t an exaggeration, either. Twelve Jersey rap luminaries—plus one guy you may, like me, have forgotten is technically both a rapper and from New Jersey—bless the simmering, instantly recognizable sample of Love De-Luxe’s “Here Comes That Sound Again” in five minutes, including Queen Latifah, Treach and Vin Rock of Naughty by Nature, Rah Digga, DoItAll and Mr. Funkee of Lords of The Underground, and yes, Newark’s native son Shaquille O’Neal. None of the verses are longer than eight bars, but the barrage hits hard and fast. If this song dropped in 2023, it would’ve made for a perfect Hip-Hop 50 showcase, a cipher ushering every unc and auntie within a five-mile radius to the dancefloor.
The beginning of the year is a notoriously slow time for new releases—otherwise this fun but fleeting cipher released the day before Christmas might not have made it into the Hearing Things weekly staff listening session. But it did, and as we listened, a consensus emerged: This song is profoundly removed from the zeitgeist, but it undeniably hits. All that considered, here’s my power ranking of each verse on “Lite It Up.”
13. Shaquille O’Neal
Shaq is one of two shocking gets here, and easily the most underwhelming. Leave it to the NBA legend to make turning “one billion to-dos” and lounging in Miami like Tony Montana sound boring. Still, it’s kinda fun that Shaq Diesel took time out of his day to do this.
12. Treach
Naughty by Nature member Treach has one of the calmest verses in the ciph, and that stoic nature doesn’t do favors to his extremely cliche weedisms and tough-guy talk.
11. Hakim Green
Former Channel Live frontman Hakim Green comes at this verse with plenty of energy, but like Treach, his weed metaphors are a touch too generic. His punchlines are more specific (“Got more knowledge than Mona Lisa,” “You’ll be hotter next Friday like Dae-Dae”) but they still don’t hit like they should.
10. DoItAll
One-third of the Lords of The Underground (and current Newark city councilman) DoItAll is Newark to the fullest. His verse squeezes love for Allah and the screams of Brick City into a tight space. It isn’t lacking in flavor, but it’s not quite flamboyant or distinct enough to stand out.
9. Mr. Funke
Speaking of “flamboyant,” Mr. Funke, another member of Lords of The Underground, has no problem making an impression by the end of his first bars. “Fresh off the plane from abroad/I almost forgot my name, they kept calling me Lord,” he says with a smirk. Between this and joking about pulling away from the spot with your auntie in the front seat, he’s here for a good time, not a long one.
8. Lady Luck
Luck’s is one of the only verses explicitly about the art of rapping. She’s nimble and tough as nails, claiming her style is Biblical and saying anyone who tests her will need ambulances and fire trucks to save them from the burn. It’s not enough to be the best, but what really pushes her is her delivery—her flow and energy give her the air of a mob boss.
7. El Da Sensei
El Da Sensei, who was once one-half of the sadly defunct duo Artifacts, has wordplay to spare, but what helps his verse stand out is its rhyme schemes. He brings personal and cultural history into the mix, telling a succinct story in eight bars. By the end, we know who he is and what he’s about: a Boom Squad representative who made his bones with “Spray cans, Magnums, and stolen black books.”
6. Queen Latifah
It’s been about 15 years since Queen Latifah dropped a solo album, so seeing her name in the features was beyond surprising. The West Orange-born MC could read a geology report and make it sound amazing, and her brief verse, while not very showy, still gets by with style. It actually sounds like she’s holding back, content to call the competition weirdos before ending with an exasperated “Lemme calm down, where the dancefloor?” The slickness behind her words carries her the distance.
5. Vin Rock
Vin Rock’s verse isn’t the most creative, but he has the sharpest flow of anyone in the group. It bolsters what would normally be rote bars into magnificent earworms that catch the beat just right: “Proceed with caution, ‘cause you might get pushed/I be smokin’ on your pack like that OG Kush.” The upward inflection on the last two words sells the big baller status. It’s a wonder anyone could hate on this “Garden State great.”
4. Redman
The man of the hour keeps it classy but won’t let you forget what he’s done for Brick City. Redman’s made a career of fitting as much personality into a song as possible, and he doesn’t slouch here, claiming you can’t use Siri to look up his recipes and declaring himself the Newark equivalent of Hustle & Flow’s Skinny Black. When he says “I never sold a brick, but the Brick’s on my back,” it’s easy to believe him.
3. Heather B
Rapper and co-host of Sway In The Morning Heather B holds this song down in more ways than one. Not only is her flow crisp and her writing impactful and funny (“Bruh, I am the lights and the camera/Bruh, don’t blame me, I voted Kamala”), but alongside Redman, she’s also on hook and adlib duty throughout the entire song. Her voice is an animating presence on “Lite It Up,” and that’s enough to land her a spot in the top three.
2. Nikki D
“I’m standing on my 10 in these 40 Below Timbs,” says Newark rapper Nikki D, immediately staking a claim to smash the competition. Her voice is so forceful, it helps each of her bars impact like a fist through concrete: “Jersey starting five like the Dodgers did in five/I let you breathe in the fourth, in the fifth? Bitch, goodbye.” Like DoItAll, she aims to bring the streets of Newark to life but does so with much more vivid imagery.
1. Rah Digga
Two verses into the song, Rah Digga effortlessly steamrolls the opposition with the kind of verse that could quiet a crowd. She zig-zags sharply through the beat; her metaphors are descriptive and hilarious (“In my see-through dress with a fupa/Somewhere in Aruba, spending money like I’m Musa”); and her confidence is as high as the Audible headquarters at Washington Place in Newark. It’s a shame most every other guest came after her, because she stole the song before anybody else had the chance.
Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that this was Queen Latifah's first verse in 15 years. She hasn't released a solo rap album in 15 years.
