Illmatic - review

Starve rappers. Any emcees that show signs of potential should be locked up and starved. When an album blazes with this much hunger and freedom, you'll see where I'm coming from. Just like the first Wu-tang album a year prior to Illmatic's release, the world of hip-hop was being treated to the grimiest music, the realest music, but more importantly, these creative black artists were shining, on their own terms, and in their own unique way.

The sense of community and family is felt right from the start with the audible conversations on the intro (a beat that just cries out to be rapped on). He sounds focused as the funky beat rides out to it's conclusion, leaving us waiting. Waiting. Then the bells chime and the beat plays, on New York State of Mind, Nas' sense of purpose will turn your brain into a bullet-riddled car. The relentless flow and meaningful lyrics combine to create poetry of the highest, most engaging quality.

Musically, Illmatic is perfectly matched to Nas' style, where the odd track may not have the most obviously dope beat, Nas compensates by raising his lyrical standards to new heights. Pete Rock and Q-Tip make glowing contributions to the album, and Large Professor emobodies all that is great about the old school on Memory Lane. First and foremost though, on the first half of the album, we are given that brief moment of clarity, so rare in hip-hop, out of nowhere on Life's a bitch, Nas' father drowns out everything with a beautiful saxophone solo at the end. Random moments of magic like that are what make classic records classic.

Nas made a classic record. I have a feeling that he didn't know it would be a classic when he made it, he was just doing and saying what came most naturally to him at the time. That's the very essence of a masterpiece though, the artist himself is unaware of anything other than the piece of art in question. All Nas was doing was being himself, an emcee. It just happens to turn out that he was (and still defiantly is) one of the greatest emcees of all time.

Y.Misdaq aka Yoshi

Afterthought- taken from an extract of my unfinished book (on hip-hop culture)

"The first half of the 90's was a crucial period for hip-hop. Change was slowly coming. Master P's ugly face was on the horizon, and there was a set path for all of the musicians of that time, either positive expression, or commercialism. KRS-1, Rakim, Ultramagnetic, Kool G. Rap & Jungle Brothers ruled the second half of the 1980's. That was the widely look upon as 'the golden era'. Looking back now at the mid-90's however, it was Nas, Wu-Tang & Biggie that lead the second 'golden era', De La, Kool Keith and Tribe all stuck around to be part of the party too. Ready to die, enter the 36 Chambers & illmatic could all at this very moment compete for best hip-hop album of all time."

-audio clip comes courtesy of the best online hip-hop store, sandbox automatic