Just as important as the MC who raps with a razor under his tongue is the cut’s producer, DJ Premier.
Nas’ steel-toed raps about grilling out-of-towners paints a vivid portrait of his hood on this underrated gem. It was the perfect lyrical cap to a breathlessly astonishing 39 minutes. Large Professor lifts from Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” and Nas so nimbly dances around the beat you’d have thought he went to Julliard. 8 on this list is undeniable proof of Illmatic’s greatness. Yet, Nasty Nas packs a wallop without ever raising his voice or speeding up his flow, a feat impressive in itself. Usually when rappers beast lyrically, they spin around like the Tazmanian Devil. He kicks it deliberately, trying to stay mellow over Large Professor’s hypnotic beat as he roots for the villain while illin’. “One Time 4 Your Mind”Įven when he’s rapping at half-speed, Nasir still spits circles around his peers. (“Genesis,” one of the best album intros of any genre ever, was not included as it’s not actually a song). To commemorate the classic, we’ve ranked the nine songs on the album from great to most mind-blowing. And yet, nothing he has done professionally since Illmatic, and nothing he will do, can match the flawless masterpiece of the best rap album of all time. Since then, the top-five-dead-or-alive MC survived a beef with JAY-Z and created multiple great albums before declaring life is good on the strength of his reputation. That’s right Illmatic dropped 25 years ago on April 19, 1994. It’s been a quarter century since Nas birthed the genesis of his New York state of mind.
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