Explain Nas' Illmatic To Me

Sterling - look, don't bully people into insisting why Illmatic is the shit. I'm not going to insult you if you don't believe it is but you seem to have this chip on your shoulder to dislike Illmatic to the point where you're ridiculing people's civil attempts at suggesting that maybe the album is actually pretty good.

Why not just chalk this up to "I'm not feeling it" and leave it at that? This complaint of yours that Nas' songs have no structural relationship between content and flow reminds me musicology students I've come across who seem more intent on dissecting the mechanics of a song rather than talk about their emotive affect. The two aren't mutually exclusive but one shouldn't need to justify either a like or dislike of a song or artist based on its structural qualities anymore than one should judge a painting solely based on its brush work.

YOU DON'T LIKE NAS. Ok, we heard you the first time, but goading people into proving you wrong is a waste of both people's time. You're clearly defiantly intractable in your position.

For the record - I'm not a huge Nas fan, mostly for many of the reasons Hua points out - dude has squandered his talents time and time again and I find Nas' acolytes to be a funny bunch of believers who continue to insist he can do no wrong despite having made a catalog's worth of shitty songs. That said, Illmatic is firmly planted on my top 10 list of all-time great hip-hop albums for all the reasons that people have already stated and if people disagree, that's cool with me.

Frankly, I'm not feeling the Streets and you know why? I can't hang with his accent and no amount of lyrical analysis can overcome that bias on my part. I guess now I'm being defiantly intractable. :)

--Oliver

The first thread on this board ever, back in 2000 (or late 99?) was Tom "provoking" ppl into defending emo.

This board has a long long history of exactly this sort of discussion, and its always been when it works out one of its strengths.

Sterling...where do you stand on Illmatic now? Has it changed for you?

i like illmatic a lot but it sounds old and soft to me. that lyrical style everyone says they like is all over the next seven albums. he's not perfect (five mics for stillmatic didn't make any sense because it kind of sucks), but lyrically, pretty much everything else he did kills illmatic badly. it's almost like people enjoy the philosophy or something of illmatic more than anything else or maybe the idea of it, the whole reactionary, tired dullness of it. like, "damn, why'd this guy hook up with hot producers and get hot rappers on his shit and step his lyrical game way up when he could have remade illmatic a million times???"

I'm not saying Nas is irredeemable but Jay-Z had it right - Nas' consistency is pretty far off, at least in my opinion, and the only people who really seem to go to bat for him (yourself excluded) are precisely kids who fell in love with Illmatic and keep desperately hoping that he comes back to that.

In other news, there are rumors that Columbia is planning on doing a remix version of "Illmatic." 10 producers for each of the 10 songs. Hot or not?

I like Hua's essay lots but it sorta misses the "uplift" side that ppl get from him which was there well before "I Can" and also I'm a bit skittish about the teleology reading Illmatic as a prophecy of future downfall or something. Something in nas' "there-i-said-it delivery" (great line) implies to some people at least, some sort of spiritual redemption in itself -- not quite the seamless valorization of a fall from grace. I've been listening to Illmatic less than ever, really and don't even think I've unpacked it after my move this summer. But I thought of Nas recently when I thought of the trying-too-hard-teen-poetry quality of the Pac verses on the Biggie duet.

Explain what is reactionary, tired and dull about Illmatic. Other than the fact that there is a consensus of opinion about it, which obviously bothers you.

it's still a great album and i love nas.

it's still a great album and i love nas.

It's great but it's dull? Say what?

And how are you drawing on the consensus dissenting opinion in your critcism of the "reactionary" consensus? I'm confused.

I like Illmatic very much. I also like early 90s hip-hop production style. I like old funk and soul music, and I like when producers sample it.

Dear fucking GOD. Kill me now. I don't want to live on the same earth as someone who can say this without feeling physically ill.

the hua hsu thing is the differentest thing i've ever seen written about it and most of the stuff he likes about it is all over the other albums, too.

I have read people saying that he never did anything as good as Illmatic, and that he went in a different direction musically because he wanted to sell more records. Is that what you mean?

I notice you're arguing that his lyrics got better. I haven't listened closely enough to tell. But what about the music? Did that get better? I don't think so, personally.

anyway what the fuck is "perspective" worth? this is mark s' point about how rockism fails on its OWN terms. If you value long-term critical perspective then you can't retreat to rad-subjective "i like it coz it makes me feel happy" simultaneously & what does it say that yr. leaping to assumptions about who heard what when anyway?

why does it make you feel euphoric? which lines do? what do they remind you of, how is the delivery especially effective? is it a euphoria like sniffing ether or like drinking red wine or like getting a backrub? what are you afraid of?

Besides what everyone else has said, the beats make me happy. I love the sound of the production, the way it all comes together. I love how Nas voice sounds, I love the lyrics because I can envision virtually everything he says, I love it because of its cinematic imagery, the darkness present in it, and I enjoy it because it is exquisite music. Frankly, I think the burden is on YOU to provide reasoning for why you hate it beyond this bizarre "I find it boring" argument.

It seems like you are just trying to be provacative here...I just plain enjoy listening to the album on its own terms. It is one of the few albums that I listen to with ANY regularity - the others being Organized Konfusion's "Stress" and Biggie's "Ready To Die" and Mingus' "Black Saint" and "Mingus x5" and Miles Davis' "Porgy and Bess" and "Astral Weeks" by V Morrison...I just plain LOVE listening to it; its as near to perfection as any music I have ever heard.

I didn't buy your argument either tho. Not because I don't think opinions formed over a period of time aren't likely to be more accurate and insightful--they are. But you have to back it up with some concrete detailed examples (which are notably absent from cloverlandthug's posts too).

So Skinner is over now? How quickly the hipsters move on.

Slow day at work today...

(ps there are no grounds on which to argue for a standpoint of "informed subjectivity" -- hell, maybe he listened to too much rap and it made him cynical and burnt out!)

ps there are no grounds on which to argue for a standpoint of "informed subjectivity"

I have no idea what this means.

re: grounds, the point is that there's no basis to argue that "informed" euphoria is any more valid than "uninformed" euphoria. if you want to argue about "quality" then you need other criteria than "my subjectivity is better than yours".

As long as people are still arguing about Illmatic, it holds its place in the quote-unquote canon.

If people start arguing about all the other albums, they might displace it.

Perhaps instead of asking us to defend Illmatic, he needs to better think out his argument against it other than "its just boring."

What exactly do you mean by "objective" criticism? You mean like Explain Why The Album Is Important? Cuz I can do that too. But ultimately the reason I like it is just because I find it more enjoyable than 99% of albums.

I am aware...I'm talking about Sterling. As was OWang.