Nas - Illmatic

Getting into some hip-hop lately, but my knowledge of the genre overall is pretty flimsy. When I google "greatest rap albums of all time" online lists, Nas - Illmatic is consistently listed in the Top 10. What's the deal with this particular album?

 

Listen to it and find out.

 

From a historical perspective it was an important album for the time period re: its themes and the east-coast scene in particular.

But it's just a good album overall. I agree with @notesofachord , just take a listen and judge it that way.

 

It's a good album, but I've never really liked it as much as Stillmatic tbh

 

It’s pretty killer. I have it on CD and vinyl. There is also a documentary about it I remember seeing that was pretty good.

 

I'm not big on rap/hip hop, but "The World Is Yours" is just a great song.

 

Important to the development of it's genre and probably rivals only Kate Bush for best album/age (he was 20 when it was all put together) but coming from a guy who pays no attention to hip hop, I could put on this and still enjoy myself no problem, it's a really great record and dare I say essential if you 're trying to knock out the "essential" pop albums since The Beatles.

 

It's a great album. And it still hold up.

 

The only hip-hop albums I've ever heard are 2001, The Chronic, Doggystyle, Straight Outta Compton and Illmatic and I have little intention of hearing anymore, so I'm definitely not a hip-hop fan. However, I really like this album. It is incredibly atmospheric and the production is amazing. And as someone who doesn't know what makes a good rapper and doesn't care, I sill appreciate Nas' flow on here. Definitely give it a listen.

 

It just doesn't get much better. If you like that classic jazz-sample east coast sound. Maybe I'm biased cuz I grew up on it but yeah, just listen to it! "It was written" is also very good but not quite as amazing. Also life's a b$&tch has the best guest spot of all time! AZ SOSA

 

Look at the first rap line of the album, on "N.Y. State of Mind" (say the line out loud to yourself):

"Rappers, I monkey flip 'em with the funky rhythm I be kickin'"

The album is full of complex, multi-syllable rhyming, and internal rhymes happening within lines. It's a huge jump forward from the early days of rhyming couplets, where just the last syllables of each line rhyme ("duh-duh-duh-duh-ay / duh-duh-duh-duh-ay").

Nas did cool stuff like this throughout this album, and he did it picking words that weren't just sonically fitting but painted great imagery. The album is a real pleasure to listen to.

 

Too bad all these wonderfully complex rhymes don’t include a larger vocabulary, “The funky rhythm I be kicking” being a classic example of the same cliché stuff you hear 1 million times.

 

Slammin'. But i tend to go more for production values/beats/loops than overt lyricism. Thus Three 6 is more my thing, tbh.

 

You never know when you're gonna go...

 

It's Nas at the top of his game with several top-flight Hip-hop producers serving up classic East Coast beats. The album was recognized immediately as a classic upon release and has stood the test of time. It came out at a time when many Rap albums would have one or two hot singles propping up average albums. In contrast, Illmatic has a much deeper line-up of songs where you really can't pick out one great song as better than the rest. Somehow an album made for true Hip-hop fans became a commercial success.

All that being said, it's not one of my personal favorites beyond a few tracks. Nas had an erratic career after Illmatic and made some questionable decisions picking producers. The lure of commercial success led him astray as the 90's unfolded.

 

I did get a chance to listen to "NY State of Mind" today, and a bit of the track after that, but not the whole album.

Impressions from a brief listen: Lean, unobtrusive production, good use of a piano bass line loop, a groove that's kind of dark and hypnotic, but isn't too heavy like some of the other hip-hop stuff I've heard in the background, doesn't get in the way of the rhymes or draw too much attention to itself. Nas rhymes with some purpose and skill, somewhat bitter (justifiably), but he's not boasting about the size of his di#k or about "bitches and hoes". He's fantasizing about being a gangster, but I don't think he's really celebrating gangster life, but probably is scared of it.

 

You need to free up some time and play this album through dude! it leaves a froze like heron in your nose

 

Classic Hip Hop Year-By-Year: 1986-1995

We just moved into '94 and Illmatic. There's a lot of great opinions on the pages that preceed it, if you're wanting opinions on great hip hop.

 

I believe it was MC Serch who gave Nas his first shot.

 

Hip-hop & rap comprise the smallest components of my collection, but this post got me thinking about release proximity to one of my favourite albums - Gang Starr's "Hard to Earn" - released just a month prior (March 1994); then I started pulling titles and realized what a phenomenal window of output for the genre/s that 6-7 month period in '94 was: "Hard to Earn"; "Illmatic"; "Sun Rises in the East" (Jeru); "Muse..." (Public Enemy); "Ready to Die" (Biggie debut!); and "The Diary" (Scarface). You could cornerstone a collection from that period - albeit with an East Coast bias.

 

It kept going strong into the fall with OC, Common, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Redman, Method Man, The Coup, Artifacts, Digable Planets...

 

The 10th Anniversary CD has a few bonus tracks worth hearing.

 

I prefer Mobb Deep's albums The Infamous and Hell On Earth.

 

What does that have to do with anything?

 

Tried it. Binned it. Sorry I can't be more positive.