Explain Nas' Illmatic To Me

that said, i lol'd when i saw the $48 price tag on the 2xLP, 45 RPM reish of Nirvana's Inscesticide the other day. and I am a mega-fan of said band. but that is beyond ridiculous, even for the vinyl-gouging game.

otm, it is just fascinating when you see like a fleetwood mac record inexplicably priced at $50, & scan the lil sticker on the shrinkwrap to see how they've justified this

does he really? obv some great songs here and there but it feels like the overwhelming majority of his best work is actually on his albums, which can't be said for most rappers that have debuted since like 2000 (xpost)

that said, i lol'd when i saw the $48 price tag on the 2xLP, 45 RPM reish of Nirvana's Inscesticide the other day. and I am a mega-fan of said band. but that is beyond ridiculous, even for the vinyl-gouging game.

otm, it is just fascinating when you see like a fleetwood mac record inexplicably priced at $50, & scan the lil sticker on the shrinkwrap to see how they've justified this

― absurdly pro-D (schlump), Monday, November 26, 2012 4:14 PM (31 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you have so much to learn about HOT STAMPERS

"oh wow 180-gram vinyl, double vinyl" *wallet explodes from pocket, bills flutter checkoutwards*

xpost:

Yeah. I sometimes zone out to these fan made comps from a few years back. They hold up:

Tracklisting:
-------------

Disc 1

01. Nas - Formal Introduction (2:51)
02. Nas - Deja Vu (No DJ) (3:53)
03. Nas - On The Real (3:26)
04. Nas - Street Dreams (Remix) (4:46)
05. Nas - The Second Coming (3:34)
06. Nas - My Worst Enemy (4:06)
07. Nas - The Rise And Fall (3:57)
08. Nas - Tales From The Hood (4:00)
09. Nas - Escobar 97 (3:31)
10. Nas - Good Morning (2:22)
11. Nas - Find Ya Wealth (3:40)
12. Nas - High (2:30)
13. Nas - New York Talk (3:52)
14. Nas - Silent Murder (With Bonus Verse) (3:23)
15. Nas - Stay Chizzled (Large Professor Remix) (3:29)
16. Nas - Star Wars (4:08)
17. Nas - Understanding (3:13)
18. Nas - Life is Like a Dice Game (Extended Mix) (4:22)
19. Nas - Take it in Blood (Alternate Verses) (4:18)
20. Nas - You Don't Know Me (3:39)
21. Nas - Project Window (Original Version) (5:04)
22. Nas - 2Nd Childhood Remix Medley (Bonus Track) (4:33)
23. Nas - The World is Yours II Dead Presidents Blend (Bonus Track) (2:55)

Disc 2: Verses From... the Bowels of Hell

01. Nas - Verse From 93 Westwood Show (2:15)
02. Nas - Sinful Living (1:46)
03. Nas - Firm Clue Freestyle (2:02)
04. Nas - Verse From Funk Flex Volume 2 (1:28)
05. Nas - The Foulness (Part 1 And 2) (3:14)
06. Nas - One Plus One (Minus One) (1:39)
07. Nas - Hot 97 Freestyle (True Dialect) (0:46)
08. Nas - Verses From Everything is Real (1:19)
09. Nas - Bonus Verses From Ain't Hard to Tell (2:31)
10. Nas - Bonus Verse From Street Dreams (1:10)
11. Nas - Verse From Desperados 2 (1:37)
12. Nas - Verse From Affirmative Action Remix (1:27)
13. Nas - Verse From Thug Calm Down (1:19)
14. Nas - Verse From Last Words (1:54)
15. Nas - Eye For An Eye Freestyle (1:30)
16. Nas - Verse From to My (1:11)
17. Nas - Verses From Soundtrack to The Streets (2:11)
18. Nas - Live From The Bridge (Minus Clue on The Bridge) (2:25)
19. Nas - Verse From a Few Good Niggas (1:48)
20. Nas - Verse From Let My Niggas Live (1:13)
21. Nas - Stillmatic Freestyle (2:26)
22. Nas - Verse From It's Mine (1:03)
23. Nas - Verse From Be Ez (1:21)
24. Nas - Verse From Show Discipline (0:42)
25. Nas - Verse From Da Bridge 2001 (0:56)
26. Nas - Verse From Made U Look Remix (0:58)
27. Nas - Verse From Some of Em (1:12)
28. Nas - Verse From in Between Us (1:01)
29. Nas - Verse From Self Conscience (1:34)
30. Nas - Verse From Road to Zion (1:03)
31. Nas - Verse From Never Too Late (1:41)
32. Nas - Verse From Journey Through Life (1:24)
33. Nas - Verse From Good Life (0:43)
34. Nas - Verses From Let Em Hang (1:22)
35. Nas - Verses From I Want it (1:58)
36. Nas - Jonesin' (1:19)
37. Nas - Verse From Bravehearted (0:58)
38. Nas - Verse from Livin Thug (1:04)
39. Nas - 2006 Freestyle (1:51)
40. Nas - The Curse (1:01)
41. Nas - My Will (1:49)
42. Nas - Zone Out Over Just Blaze (Bonus Track) (1:45)

Disc 3: Synergy

01. Nas - Life's a Bitch Featuring AZ (Statik Selektah Mad Sol Remix) (2:39)
02. Nas - In Too Deep Featuring Nature (3:41)
03. Nas - John Blaze Featuring Big Punisher Jadakiss And Raekwon (3:54)
04. Nas - Mo Money Mo Murder Homicide Featuring AZ (5:11)
05. Nas - The Foulness (Part 3) Featuring Nature (1:44)
06. Nas - Serious Featuring AZ (2:14)
07. Nas - Streets of New York (No Singing) Featuring Rakim (1:42)
08. Nas - Analyze This Featuring Jay-Z (2:40)
09. Nas - Fast Life (Buckwild Remix) Featuring Kool G Rap (4:53)
10. Nas - Wake Up Show 94 Anthem Featuring Lauryn Hill, Organized Konfusion, And Ras Kass (2:23)
11. Nas - The Foulness (Part 4) Featuring Nature (1:40)
12. Nas - Tick Tock Featuring Prodigy (3:47)
13. Nas - Queenstyle Featuring Noreaga (4:41)
14. Nas - Body in The Trunk Featuring Noreaga (3:45)
15. Nas - Time Featuring AZ And Nature (3:44)
16. Nas - Everyday Thing Featuring Nature And Dre (4:36)
17. Nas - Sometimes I Wonder Featuring Nature (4:51)
18. Nas - Thugz Mansion (Cookin Soul Remix) Featuring 2Pac (3:40)
19. Nas - Why (Remix) Featuring Jadakiss And Common (3:02)
20. Nas - Music For Life Featuring Common (4:57)
21. Nas - Eye For An Eye Featuring Mobb Deep And Raekwon (4:48)
22. Nas - Verbal Intercourse Featuring Raekwon And Ghostface (3:31)

Rap & Bull bonus disc:

01. Nas - Sincerity Featuring Mary J Blige And DMX (5:07)
02. Nas - Ice King (Remix) Featuring Res (3:52)
03. Nas - Did You Ever Think (Remix) Featuring R.Kelly (4:19)
04. Nas - It Must Be Nice (Remix) Featuring Lyfe (4:20)
05. Nas - Streets of New York Featuring Alicia Keys And Rakim (4:37)
06. Nas - Make it Last Forever Featuring Mariah Carey And Joe (5:07)
07. Nas - Finer Things Featuring Jon B (5:01)
08. Nas - Man Up Featuring Amerie (3:33)
09. Nas - Love is All We Need Featuring Mary J Blige (4:14)
10. Nas - Locked Up (One Love Blend) Featuring Akon (4:57)

NSO POPS: ILLMATIC WITH NAS, March 28-29, 2014, Kennedy Center Concert Hall, W. DC
American rapper Nas and the NSO Pops kicks off One Mic: Hip-Hop Culture Worldwide on March 28, 2014 with a symphonic celebration of the 20th anniversary of Nas’s 1994 debut album and instant classic, Illmatic. These performances by Nas and the NSO capture the spirit of the original album through supporting the verse with new orchestral arrangements. NSO Principal Pops Conductor Steven Reineke leads the orchestra.

"overblown orchestral arrangements of Illmatic in another city" was the elevator pitch for the Kendrick Lamar album

http://funkydl.bandcamp.com/album/jazzmatic-nas-remixes

Actually, the only white people who posted in this thread are Sterling Clover, J0hn D., & and what.

― The Reverend, Sunday, October 21, 2007 10:33 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is jess not white?

warning, horrible:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Ofd0WwJyA&feature=youtu.be

is jess not white?

― flopson, Saturday, March 30, 2013 3:48 PM Bookmark

...

sorry!

im becoming a member of the NSO so i can get in on the pre-sale of this... feeling i might regret it... hope AZ shows up for his one verse

i've listened to this album a lot and loved it over the years but it always struck me how bad a lot of the answers were to sterl's provocations itt

like, yeah obviously there's lots of realistic detail and poetic facility in the lyrics but they're very hard to follow as narratives (not just because of nas's delivery), and you can only sell nas as a storyteller here if you try to get by on attitude instead of on like mid-career ghostface creative writing workshop storycraft

it struck me recently that ralph waldo emerson is conventionally faulted for some things related to things nas is faulted for. his writing is supposedly full of these intense gems that hang together in this entrancing way that has a tendency to seem like a tangle of empty rhetoric and attitude upon reflection, and his thought is supposedly kind of foolishly/blindly optimistic, in neglect of the facts. but the better things people write about emerson notice his continual oscillating between despair and hope, and his effort to find a way of, basically, being believable about the latter in the face of the former. so his writing is really self-conscious and concerned with its quality of consciousness, and unstable because it's trying to keep these seemingly opposed things in a kind of productive tension.

the knock against nas would be his nihilism instead of his optimism, but he has that same sort of all-encompassing ambition to take in all of life and the world at once, to be self-possessed in the face of it. and his lyrics are so complicated because they're pivoting all over the place between attitudes and frames of mind in response to the narrative details and the reminisces (lots of them for a 20-year-old!) and to nas's own attempts to be this idealist transparent-eyeball mc. and like emerson, super preoccupied with thinking/writing representatively so as to articulate something universal out of a local, everyday experience that people are usually dismissive of.

in other words hua hsu = star post itt

http://twitchfilm.com/2014/04/tribeca-2014-review-time-is-illmatic-an-illuminating-look-back-at-the-creation-of-a-hip-hop-classic.html#ixzz301ZK548s

Embedded in Nas' dark street tales are notes of optimism and hope, with the ultimate message to his listeners being, "I made it out of this alive, and so can you." A late scene that shows the announcement of a fellowship at Harvard named in his honor promoting hip-hop scholarship emphasizes this. Unlike most of the neighborhood folks whose photos were used for Illmatic's album cover art, Nas was able to escape the fates of death or prison, and Time Is Illmatic ultimately becomes a moving testimonial to how music literally saved Nas' life.

for me now, production is stone cold classic, but i never did really connect with the lyrics.

no contrarianism i do like some of the more animated delivery of other rappers way over nas' style here. did we ever discuss elzhi and elmatic? i'm not gonna say its better than illmatic, but i def enjoy listening to it more, maybe just because it feels fresher.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHBdH8aj5Co

http://emoji.fileformat.info/gemoji/corn.png

jfc

ez rock just died i'm gonna put up with this shit

lol the streets