Steve 'Flash' JuonEDITOR’S NOTE: This review was suggested by one of our fans and supporters. If you’d like to have a chance to suggest future reviews please join our Patreon at $5 a month or more to make your voice heard as well. Thank you!
Ordinarily when we review compilation albums on RR the standard practice is to attribute it to “various artists.” I briefly mulled over that idea for “Insomnia” and ultimately rejected it outright. While Erick Sermon a/k/a E Double of EPMD does not perform vocally all but one of the 13 songs, he PRODUCES all but one of the 13 songs, with Def Squad stalwart Redman ably filling in on “The Vibe” by Xross-Breed. Speaking of Reggie Noble, my favorite track on this album from 1995 to 2025 has always been “Funkorama.” In fact if I made a top ten list of Redman’s best songs and “Funkorama” wasn’t on it, I’d ask you to check my pulse and/or make sure I’m still breathing.
“I’m swifter than roller blades on Ice Capades
I’m Fearless like Four plus I’m Kool like Aid
My grammar, slam from here to York, Alabama
I never pull my pants up, I’m nutty like Planters”
This is Red at his punchline best, cramming as many jokes and references into bars as possible, hyperlinking his rap lyrics over a half decade before anybody would on Wikipedia or WordPress. You don’t have to be a genius to see how fluidly his mind flowed through the whole of pop culture. This one song would be worth owning “Insomnia” for, but since it was released as a single you might have had reason to think twice. The rest of this album is a decidedly mixed bag with the biggest highlight after Red being Keith Murray’s “It’s That Hit” … except that it’s inexplicably the WRONG version of the song. Despite having a clear parental advisory sticker on the front Erick Sermon chose to use a tamer censored version of a song Murray fans know better as “This That Shit.”
It pissed me off then and it still does today. The Tom Browne and Lonnie Smith sampling “I Feel It” featured the rap group L.O.D., who got so many Def Squad shoutouts you had to think they were going to be the next big thing. Spoiler alert — they were not. It’s a nice enough track but nothing other than a random song on a compilation album filled with an inordinate amount of randos. Perhaps if L.O.D. had been featured as guests on another song or had more than one track on the project their star would have risen to another level.
Now let me be clear here — I’m a day one fan of the Green Eyed Bandit going back to the first time I heard EPMD, and when the group had an ugly divorce I immediately sided with Sermon over Parrish Smith. It was already well known that he was as big of a contributor behind the boards that made us “get down to the sound” and musically his work here is up to par. He’s not the problem; or rather, he’s only the problem in that he chose to feature a bunch of motherfuckers nobody gave a fuck about then or now. Does anybody care about “On the Regular” by Duo? You’re lying. After this album came out they vanished. “I get up in that ass like a thong” is such a dumb line it disqualified The Wixtons from doing another song after “Up Jump the Boogie.” Say arigato to Domo and then say goodbye because after “Ready For War” you’ll hear from him no more.
That’s not to say it’s ALL no-name rappers here. A more mature Jamal who had grown up from his Illegal days delivered a solid effort on “Beez Like That Sometimes.” Tommy Gunn would go on to be better known by MF DOOM fans as Megalon of the Monster Island Czars after recording “Fear.” Sermon steps up to the mic and raps the album’s closing song “Reign,” but even if it was recorded in the earliest session of this album, it still has an undeniably world weary feel. You can sense the amount of effort Sermon put into shepherding this album across the finish line in his beats and rhymes.
I don’t hate “Insomnia.” Far from it. I think it’s a perfectly acceptable mid-1990’s rap compilation. The biggest issue here is that Erick Sermon put his name front and center and put all of his weight on it. That meant the artists contributing to it should have been at least somewhat bigger coming out of it, and that didn’t happen. Only the people who were stars coming in stayed ones going out, which suggests their songs belong on their own albums, not here. I believe Sermon thought his production chops could make anybody a household name, but the fact there’s not an “Insomnia 2” tells you that wasn’t the case.