Method Man's 2006 album 4:21…The Day After began with a rally chant to “legalize it,” serving notice that one of hip-hop’s greatest performers and potheads was back with a message. The smoky voice and glib personality remains strong many years after he emerged as Wu-Tang Clan’s lead rapper.

Born Clifford Smith in Shaolin (Staten Island, NY) on Apr. 1, 1971, "Meth" appeared on the cover of High Times in 1998  and in How High, the stoner movie with Redman in 2001. He and Red first teamed up on Blackout! in 1999, and in 2004 they had a short-lived TV show, Method and Red, on Fox. Meth had a longtime recurring role as drug dealer Calvin “Cheese” Wagstaff on HBO’s The Wire and has appeared in such movies as Meet the Spartans, Garden State, Soul Plane, Copland and Belly. He plays a Rasta ganja dealer in The Wackness.

Meth'sTical trilogy – beginning in 1994 and continued with Tical 2000: Judgment Day (1998) and Tical 0: The Prequel (2004) – is an unabashed ode to weed. For 4:21…, he played with the popular stoner numerology and even raps about it directly on "4:20.” Blackout 2 with Redman was released in May 2009.

Meth was arrested for marijuana possession in Brooklyn on May 17, 2007. He agreed to conmmunity service in a plea bargain.

Photo by Tracy Ketcher