It would’ve made sense for Nas to maintain his tough posturing stance because he was still feuding with Jay Z. Note the New Jack influences on album closer “Bye Baby” and “Reach Out.” Despite the severe misfire of “Summer on Smash,” Life Is Good finds Nas at the sharpest he’s been in a long time as he muses about the perfect woman with the ghost of Amy Winehouse on “Cherry Wine” and even revisits early ‘90s NYC danger on the Large Professor-produced “Locomotive.” He’s comfortable - the album is titled Life Is Good - but he does hint at yearning for his youthful years. Rap’s first critically acclaimed grown man album, Life Is Good finds Nas reconciling with his ‘90s vices with the fact that, at near 40, he still has plenty more to learn. Nas had recently went through a rough divorce with Kelis, but hip-hop’s Here, My Dear found him messing round and possibly making a new genre-what engineer Young Guru calls adult contemporary hip-hop. The Queens prophet sounds lost in a way he never has before.Īfter declaring hip-hop dead six years prior and declaring war on, well, everything on Untitled, Nas’ latest album actually found him at a pretty content place. A chief example is “Make the World Go Round,” which finds Nas trying to traverse overly saccharine synths and a random Chris Brown appearance. The rest of Untitled continuously fails to reach this bar, as Nas sounds like he values self-importance rather than consistency and songcraft. It’s hard not to get goosebumps this is Nas rising through the mist and returning in top form.
Within two-and-a-half minutes, Nas replaces missing fathers to unborn children (“Play this by your stomach/Let my words massage it and rub it”), throws in a few digestible punchlines, and claims the moment as the rise of Nas the Mighty (“I'm the shaky hand that touched George Foreman in Zaire/The same hand that punched down devils that brought down the towers”). Nas’ 2007 album will ultimately be remembered for two things: it’s original, unutterable title and the stunning Jay Electronica-produced “Queens Get the Money” introduction. Fans have been listening to Nas leak wisdom for over 20 years, and he's respected enough for many to be willing to do so for 20 more. All at once, Nas' career came to represent hip-hop at its finest and its crippling contradictions. It's debatable whether or not Nas was able to attain the level he reached on Illmatic ever again, but nevertheless the majority of his discography trumps that of his peers and many other lesser rappers. The second coming of Rakim had lived up to the hype, and it was still only the start of a legend. A 20-year-old Nas dropped the seminal Illmatic in 1994. With a future outside of the projects looking slim, Nas took up his childhood love of hip-hop and used world-weary intellect and a quick tongue to filter the hardships he experienced through a level of poetry that's never been seen before.
#NOTORIOUS BIG ALBUMS IN ORDER CRACK#
That kid, who would initially start out as Kid Wave and then adopt the moniker Nas, gradually became molded and hardened by the effects of the crack era and Rudy Giuliani's New York, like the other thousands of youth from the same time period. 1, but where do some of his other efforts place?īefore Kendrick Lamar raised the bar with good kid, m.A.A.d city, Kanye West walked with Jesus, and the deadly East-West Coast rivalry, there was a young kid observing life and crime through his project window.
To Whom It May Concern (Demo: People, Mr.Following the anniversary of Nas' seminal "Illmatic", we decide to take a look at how all his other albums stack up against it. Meet El Presidente (Demo: One of the Faithful) Please fill in additional songs, sources, and release dates!īig Bang Generation (Demo: Swimming With Sharks)ĭo You Believe in Shame? (Demo: Do You Believe In Faith)įirst Impression (Demo: I Won't Turn My Back For You) This is intended to be a complete list of all Duran Duran songs ever recorded, including demos, covers, and alternate titles.
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