Nas (Nasir Jones) is a rapper from Queensbridge, New York, also the home of Mobb Deep. When people talk about the best lyricists, Nas' name invariably comes up, both as someone who's put out amazing material, and as someone who's totally fallen off. He's often compared to two other kings of New York, Biggie Smalls (Christopher Wallace), and Jay-Z (Sean Carter).
My take is that he has put out some of the best material ever produced by anyone, and while it'd be hard to make each album that good, he's been able to keep producing at least some good material. Even at a short 10 songs, Illmatic is one of the greatest rap albums ever. It's lyrically on point, witty, violent, insightful, and has some fucking dope beats put down by the likes of DJ Premier and Large Professor. It's his best album. The rest are certainly spottier than Illmatic, some more than others. But Each album has some standouts. It Was Written has The Message (which actually samples a Sting song, Shape of My Heart, not the Grandmaster Flash song), Affirmative Action, Take It in Blood, Live Nigga Rap, and If I Ruled The World. The Firm album (with Canibus, Foxy Brown, Dr. Dre, and Nature) has Phone Tap and Desperados. I Am has Nas Is Like, Favor for a Favor, and Undying Love. Nastradamus has Come Get Up. Stillmatic has Got Urself a Gun (which uses that line, but doesn't actually sample A3's song), the fantastic One Mic, and an excellent (as usual) collaboration with DJ Premier (2nd Childhood).
Ironically, I Am, while solid, had some of the album's best cuts leaked to the internet and dropped from the final release of the album (Poppa Was a Player, Blaze a 50, Drunk By Myself, Hardest Thing to Do is Stay Alive), though some of those tracks eventually made it to the Lost Tapes album. In addition, it's somewhat ridiculous to claim that Nas became more materialistic, as Illmatic had a pretty materialistic bent at times. It wasn't totally out of line for him to use the "Nas Escobar" personality on his middle two albums. He was the same person, just a little farther along, a little richer and a little less hungry. It's good to see that some of that hunger returned on Stillmatic and later albums (songs like One Mic merge the later more laid back production with his aggressive rhyme style of earlier). E.g., "Made You Look" (from God's Son) is grimier than anything Nas had done for a while before it. Street's Disciple, his current latest album, is a double-disc. He appears with his father (jazz musician Olu Dara) on the single "Bridging the Gap".
Album Listing:
*Live At the
BBQ (Single, 1993)
*Illmatic (1994)
*It Was Written (1996)
*I Am (1999)
*Nastradamus (1999)
*Stillmatic (2001)
*God's Son (2002)
*The Lost Tapes (2002)
*Street's Disciple (2004)
Film Listing:
*
Rhyme and Reason (1997)
*
Belly (1998)
*
In Too Deep (1999)