Nas Illmatic 25th anniversary

25 years to the day today
OG masterpiece

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I love this record. Why are none of Nas’s other records in the same class?

  • N.Y. State of Mind
  • Life’s a Bitch
  • The World Is Yours
  • Halftime
  • Memory Lane
  • One Love
  • One Time 4 Your Mind
  • Represent
  • It Ain’t Hard To Tell

0 voters

Represent is hard as fuck, just raw aggressive good stuff

one of preemo’s best imo. the brag about dressing in guess always makes me laugh but yeah, absolute banger

1 Like

He was prodigiously talented for an 18/19 year old wasn’t he. He sounds so at ease, almost like he had achieved some kind of enlightenment, which I think really stands out when contrasted against the almost paranoid desperation of AZ on Life’s a Bitch. I find the album strangely moving tbh

Tbf, It Was Written and The Lost Tapes are classic hip hop records in their own right. Stillmatic and God’s Son excellent back to back releases. There’s plenty of missteps but I think his discography gets a bit of a hard rep. Plenty of artists have fallen off worse than Nas after their debut…

People just wanted Nas to forever be that kid and for better or worse he didn’t want to be. Probably could have squeezed out one more Illmatic before he needed to change direction though.

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It’s the absolute fucking best one.

2 Likes

this thing is 25!? man alive.

every track on here has been my fav at one point or another. but NY State of Mind is the one that’s stuck for the longest. Memory Lane not far behind.

his discography is scattered with great stuff but coming out of the gates with an all timer means the average music fan wont care (not a problem really).

he also got grosser as he aged and a lot of tracks were ruined by perverse (but not like fun perverse?.. just gross) verses or lines. and the kelis thing makes me side eye everything he’s done a bit.

still cant drag myself to listen to the kanye produced one from last year.

I think the colab album with damian marley is quite good.

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Secret ingredient was Serch. The rest of his albums are just not very good. It Was Written was OK, but the best track was a Mobb Deep castoff which says a lot - a group who more or less stuck in their lane.

Represent my favourite track. Love the shoutouts at the end. I’d like to see Wallethead, Black Jay and Big Oogi.

His demo has some good stuff on it. This could have been on Illmatic IMO, although obvs with different lyrics.

Good piece by Dart Adams.

4 Likes

:raised_hands:

Defs massively underrated.

Probably the worse performance of his career. Kanye’s beats are decent but ultimately a lot rests on him for a 7 track producer/rapper album being so disjointed

Oh the live album with orchestra had passed me by. Listening now, seems good so far.

Those sort of things really bother me TBH. Listened to the album earlier and really don’t see what can be improved - feels it undermines it a bit.

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I quite like it. Good for a change

There is nothing in life I find more satisfying than the way these words fit together.

4 Likes

Really liked what I’ve listened to. The strings were used to great effect with dramatic builds on NY State of Mind.

Could read background detail stuff like this on classic albums all day - thanks.

Crazy energy on that track. Love that he’s just dragged all his mates into the studio just to shout and go crazy. So of it’s time - don’t really get that anymore.

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