Nasty Nas. Nas
Escobar. Nastradamus. Nasir
Jones. Or simply Nas. By whatever name
he’s gone by, the Queensbridge
native’s signature style and flow have been often imitated, but
never duplicated. Completely versatile in the genre he helped pioneer,
although not without his missteps along the way, Nas
has been in the game for almost 13 years now, and is still regarded as
one of the best.
So when did this illustrious career start? In
1994, at the tender age of 19, Nas released
his first album Illmatic, to an explosion of
praise from New York’s hip hop underground as well as the wider
rap community, who according to at least one commentator, viewed him as
a “messiah” figure for rap.
The album itself is short by any contemporary
standard. At a minimalist 39 minutes, with nine tracks and an intro,
some derided it as lazy or not substantial enough. This was, of course,
only before they popped the tape (that was how we did back then) in the
deck and actually listened to the thing. One could expound for pages
and pages about each track, but I’ll stick to the highlights. The
first and arguably best track, “New York State of Mind,” is
a sonic trip through Nas’ neighbourhood of Queensbridge,
coming, as he put it, “straight out the fuckin’
dungeons of rap, where fake niggas
don’t make it back.” The DJ Premier beat is one of the
grimiest ever put on wax, and you can feel the cold, dirty New York City sidewalk underneath your
feet. Nas describes, from his 19 year old
vantage point, the problems with his city, and how poverty has changed
the situation for kids for the worst since he was young:
It’s
like the game ain’t the same
Got younger niggas pullin’ the
triggers
Bringin’ fame
to they name
And claimed
some corners
Crews without
guns are goners
In broad
daylight, stick up kids’ll run up on ya
Illmatic set the standard for every
rap album that came after it. If your raps weren’t as intelligent
as Nas’, if your slang wasn’t as
fresh, if your beats weren’t as tight, if you didn’t make
your listeners feel things like
he did, you could make no claim to being the best. In short, Nas was at once child prodigy, street kid,
intelligent young man, and gifted poet, and Illmatic
was his magnum opus, the culmination of a creative genius’
upbringing in a modern American slum. It is the best rap album of all
time and without a doubt merits the distinction of one of the greatest
albums of the 20th century.
