Looking at an Album as a Whole: Nas' Illmatic

Let me take you back to 1994. You had Melle Mel, Kurtis Blow, Big Daddy Kane, KRS One, and you even had the Notorious B.I.G. all representing the Tri-State area in hip hop in a big, big way. But then, April of ’94 came and New York City had a new face to represent their rap culture. Gone were the days of dance records that were just trying to get radio play and gone were the popular times of ragga-rapping where quick, whimsical delivery by the rhymesayers wouldn’t allow the audience to comprehend the words (Marshall). In April of 1994 the rap game changed. And this is all because of the release of the debut album coming from Queensbridge’s own, Nas. His album Illmatic, which only sold 330,000 copies in its first year of being released has gone down as easily one of the greatest albums of all time; And in my opinion, the best rap record ever.

            At the time of its release in ’94, the West Coast rap scene had really taken a stranglehold on the emerging genre that was hip-hop. N.W.A was as popular as ever, Tupac was still on top of the game (despite multiple jail sentences at the time), and Snoop Dogg’s trendy debut was brand new. And while there were plenty of other rappers representing the New York City Metropolitan area, Nas truly created a new definition on what rap was becoming. Starting the recording at just the age of eighteen years-old Nas delivered incredible, never before heard, multi-syllabic rhyme-skills that has stood the test of time for almost two decades. His phrases within his tracks such as “Life’s a bitch and then you die;” “I'm an addict for sneakers, twenties of Buddha, and bitches with beepers;” and many others have become cliché amongst the rap community today.  His style is only comparable to that of the rapper who came before him, Rakim, who hailed from Long Island. However, never before had someone painted such an intimate picture of  “the projects.” Queensbridge, which is the largest public housing area in the United States, created his persona of a laid back but also very hardcore Heineken-guzzling, weed-smoking, high school dropout whose poetic justice busted through the darkness of his environment. Check the skills here on the sixth track of the nine song-plus intro- album, Memory Lane:

Only nine songs deep, Nas proves quality is always greater than quantity. 

           It seems as though the cover of the album itself could symbolize the entire essence of Nas’ attitude and life style up until this time. Perhaps a portrait of what a young-street Nas looked like, you get this image of a kid’s no-nonsense face. Potentially implying Nas’ wise understanding of the culture in Queensbridge while only at such a young age. He details what he has seen and accomplished while living there:
        
    “I dropped out Cooley High, gassed up by a coke-head cutie pie/ Jungles survivor fuck whose the live-er/My man put the battery in my back, a difference from Energizer/ Sentence begins indented with formality/ My durations infinite, moneywise or physiology/ Poetry, that’s a part of me, retardedly bop/ I drop the ancient manifested hip-hop straight off the block/ I reminisce on park jams, my man was shot for his sheep coat/ Childhood lesson make me see him in my weed smoke/ It’s real, grew up in the trife life, the time of white lines, the hype vice/ murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes”

            This is only a snippet of one of his many songs on this album that display his immaculate ability to paint with his pen and a pad. To go along with his incredible lyricism, the album was produced by a few of the greatest rap producers of all time including DJ Premier, Pete Rock, and Q-Tip. The combination of said artists made this album one of the most acclaimed of all time and it is still to this day the only album to receive the “5 mic” rating given out by The Source. Nas’ formula of street-school credential lyrics, while displaying a Rakim-like encyclopedic knowledge of rap rhyming, proved to be a timeless success that we hip-hop heads can point to as the quintessential rap album forever. One of my particular favorite references or recollections of the impact of Illmatic to other rappers comes from The Game who states in his song “Hustlers” “Ripped the package of Illmatic and bumped that/For my niggas it was too complex when Nas rhymed/I was the only Compton nigga with a New York State of Mind.”
            Coming from a generation where Eminem was the initial hip hop artist who got my ears broken into the rap industry (born in '92), seeing the impact of Illmatic was more difficult to understand. So for a second, close your eyes and imagine hearing what Nas put out on this record, actually being back in 1994. The breakthrough in overall hip-hop recording simply must have been astounding to hear a brand new sound come from the East Coast that proved superior in all aspects of the genre. Sure, there have been other good accounts of what has transpired in the hood, but never before was there such a pure MC who, when on the mic, had us all laying back with our heads in motion to the rhythm of such beautiful rapping-style poetry. After listening to this album again and again, there is only one thing to say to legend Nas; “The World Is Yours.”


Just for educational purposes......

 

Marshall, Wayne. "Hearing Hip-Hop's Jamaican Accent." Http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu. Brooklyn College, NY Spring 2005. Web. 5 Apr. 2013.

Nas. “Memory Lane.” Illmatic. Columbia, 1994

Nas. “One Time For Your Mind.” Illmatic. Columbia, 1994

The Game. "Hustlers", The Documentary. Interscope, 2005.

MCJOSH313. "Nas -The World Is Yours Uncensored HQ." YouTube, 27 June 2012. Web. 6 Apr. 2013.

Trevor01s. "Nas Illmatic-memory Lane." YouTube, 21 July 2007. Web. 6 Apr. 2013.

Weiss, Jeff. "Nas: Illmatic Music Review." http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/17497-illmatic/. Pitchfork, Get On Down 23 Jan 2013. Web. 5 Apr. 2013.