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Nas' Second Childhood · by Abe Beame
2001’s “Stillmatic Freestyle” will live in infamy for all the wrong reasons. Hip Hop historians will remember it fondly for the few clunky Roc swipes pasted on towards its conclusion. The mixtape cut constitutes the first non-sublim shot fired in the most important battle of the modern era, every hip hop nerd’s wet dream. It also happened to be one of Nasir Jones’ greatest verses in a career long on charged monologues. Fittingly spitting over the Coldcut remix of his idol’s biggest contribution, Nas effortlessly hits on every cylinder, delivering a two minute sermon/mission statement the likes of which hadn’t been seen since LL crushed Kool Moe Dee. He’s brilliant, nimble and devastating but most importantly leaves a blueprint of his own, outlining his master plan for the coming decade. “Since Illmatic it was written I am, Nastradamus/That’s the answers to the puzzle I gave you, now here’s a promise/My next few albums, instead of projects/They’ll be a difficult test inside the cover for the mind’s optics.”
The three albums that followed 1994’s classic debut are difficult to define. At best they were an attempt to capture a moment in hip hop, at worst they were pandering. Regardless of their motivation they represent an identity crisis for the MC who seems to have had it almost too easy early on. While from a technical standpoint It Was Written is a near perfect album front to back, it seemed somehow removed from its author. Where was the implied social commentary, the devastating insight that made his street narratives in Illmatic resonate? Nas seemed to sense this, and his uneven I Am / Nastradamus series was an attempt to reconcile Nasty and Escobar. His desire to contain multitudes fell flat. Biggie and Tupac could convincingly pull off shades of a man. While the talent is apparent at all times, Nas goes too far in asking us to accept “You Owe Me” alongside “Project Window”, a shaky alliance doomed from its inception.
With the release of Nigger sometime early this year, Nas will have surpassed the official output of his first half. (All eight albums have sold platinum) The second leg of his career has been fascinating, plagued by inconsistency (Both Stillmatic and Hip Hop is Dead were a ruthless edit away from greatness) but featuring some of the 21st century’s most thrilling moments. Most of the albums had a loosely strung together mood and theme. Stillmatic was his Count of Monte Cristo, a vengeful, triumphant redemption song. God’s Son was nostalgic and introspective, alternating between a hopeful spirituality and melancholy with the specter of his recently deceased mother hanging over it. Hip Hop is Dead is an art record, taking an appreciative glance back at the history of the medium and contemplating an artists place in and responsibility to it. Still, the driving force behind the rebirth of Nas is understood best in 2004’s Street’s Disciple.
Quite simply, the rule for SD is there are no rules. Overseen for the most part by Salaam Remi, with the occasional assist from LES or the Hitmen, this album is all over the board. It is steeped in an appreciation for the old school, giving us an indication of what was to come two years later. Nas goes over the Dismasters “Small time hustler” for a storyteller that sounds like it could have been the theme for Dame Dash’s uptown tribute Paid in Full. (Same goes for “You Know my Style”) Q-Tip’s “American Way” is classic electro funk down to the “Atomic Dog” sample. “Virgo” actually features a Doug E. Fresh beat box as Ludacris channels Slick Rick and the original (far superior) version of the title track saw Nas going hard over the Kool Genius’ “Road to Riches.”
Still, to categorize this as a throwback album would be ill fitting. Nas dedicates (too much) time to Kelis, manipulates his voice to rap as a woman in Sekou’s second half, saves space for social and racial critique plus a handful of gangsterish lyrical showcases. Escobar isn’t completely gone, the album’s intro is a direct Casino rip reminiscent of his “Street Dreams” video, but Nas has found a way to make his alter ego feel natural by injecting a hint of righteousness and world weariness in with his slick talk. The adversarial nature of “Message to the Feds, Sincerely, We the People” transcends the cut and paste Scorsese shit that got stale quickly in days past. His political and racial messages at the front of the first disc work because of the dash of levity, Nas is funny tossing around race clichés like Sambo and Uncle Tom but still incisive. Essentially, the man child has learned, having found a wit to match his intellect and that’s made all the difference.
The genius in the uneven album is that its concept is that uncertainty, the idea here is experimentation. Nas is throwing darts at the drawing board and seeing which ones stick, and on “U.B.R.” he displays why the bad is worth the good. The song is simply an eloquent oral history on the life and times of William Griffin, but what Nas accomplishes on this song and many others scattered amongst his last four albums is expanding the idea of what a Hip Hop song is and what it can be. Granted, at times he falls flat, but lovers of our art form (present audiences as well as generations to come) should find his usually entertaining misses worth laboring through for these educational moments of sheer genius.
Criticize the new incarnation of Nas for being willfully obtuse and indulgent, incapable of editing himself or finding a perfect beat. Still, his impact on the game remains unquestioned. Fourteen (Holy Fuck, fourteen) years later when Nas talks, Hip Hop listens, from the net’s most highfalutin bloggers to Hotlantas gulliest tRappers. I don’t think anyone could argue that type of respect in a market as fickle as this one goes unearned. Furthermore, personally the thing that redeems the pretension of a Nas or (gasp) a Kanye in my mind is the unbridled passion they are never afraid to display. Nas stopped worrying about his base, his image, his numbers and began to make the music he wanted to make, to indulge every whim and fancy and did it without making a shitty neo soul record. As far as I’m concerned, Hip Hop is love and with all due respect to the “fuck rap, I’m out to make cream and that’s that” sentiment, passion coupled with talent this immense can’t be a bad thing.
Comments for "Nas' Second Childhood"
“shitty neo soul record”
sexual eruption?
— enbob Jan 9, 01:29 AM
#
“shitty neo soul record”
sexual eruption?”
See Common’s, Mos Def’s, and Andre 3000’s career.
— DocZeusX Jan 9, 03:09 AM
Abe – great, great post, Rakim > NAS.
enbob, DocZeusX – You’re comparing apples and oranges. You don’t think Andre 3000 = genius?
— ADB Jan 9, 03:56 AM
Nice post, but I disagree about a few things:
1.) The themes of each of Nas’ “grown man” albums aren’t so different from one another. In fact, these same themes pervade his early albums as well. Take nostalgia, for instance? Which one of his albums is not heavily imbued with tales of hip hop’s past, Nas’ past, black peoples’ past, etc.?
2.) All of Nas’ post-Illmatic albums are all over the place conceptually—that’s the only thing that they share, aside from the inconsistent production. SD isn’t unique in this respect.
3.) The fact that It Was Written seems divorced from the author seems intentional. Nas’ whole career is essentially an extended experiment concerning the narrative voice in his music. He branched out a bit on his 2nd album, even more on the albums that followed. His success record is spotty, but he hasn’t stopped trying.
In short, Nas hasn’t really changed much. All of these things—the wit (even irony), the narrative experiments, the weirdness, the intertwined motifs—they’re all there since at least It Was Written, and, some might even argue, since Illmatic
— eauhellzgnaw Jan 9, 06:17 AM
“You don’t think Andre 3000 = genius?”
When he decides to rap. And ONLY when he decides to rap.
— DocZeus Jan 9, 11:29 AM
GREAT post, Abe.
Have you written here before? If so, I’ve been sleeping. You did a great job dissecting Nas’ post-Illmatic career, which is never easy to do.
— AaronM Jan 9, 12:03 PM
I’ve been a fan of Nas since Live at the BBQ. Even at his worst he can command lyrics to say so much more.
Even when the music that backs him falters he continues to thrive to this day.
Artistically I appreciate when he tries and stumbles, decides to make a strong statement for hip hop that gets misconstrued by people that won’t read, research or explore past the headline title.
The dude is unquestionably talented and there’s an obvious passion behind his method.
. . . and I never want to listen to “You Owe Me” ever again.
Good Post.
— Vee Jan 9, 12:26 PM
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CXAF55RO
94 Nas freestyle with O.C., Redman, & AZ, plus extra freestyles by the Artifacts
— EvilOne Jan 9, 07:27 PM
lol are we to ignore the description then?
— Rafi Jan 9, 07:54 PM
exactly how i feel
people laugh at me when i back SD up, the album was pretty good, and i feel it was superior to stillmatic and far better than HHID
— tucan sam ain't nuthin ta f' wit Jan 9, 10:39 PM
Check out Nas Live @ the Hammerstein and Oh word we deserve a post for this cause MTV’s coverage deflated how ill this concert was!!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=GTehS3wBL28
— Majesty/STREET KNOWLEDGE MEDIA Jan 10, 02:17 AM
I feel that SD was awful, but that most of the awfulness was due to all the bad beats and hooks (the rest was due to the weak attempts at political commentary, all the Kelis songs, the Scarlett experiment, and Makings of A Perfect Bitch). In fact, if you’d only ever heard MF Doom’s remix of Nastradamus, you’d think it was a solid album.
— Tray Jan 11, 03:53 AM
SD wasn’t an awful album at all. There is some good tracks on it that I still bump from time to time. But, people who are in agreement that SD is better than Stillatic are clueless. There are not many albums better than it still to this day
— Seamo Jan 12, 07:01 AM
Stillmatic is mediocre. i can’t pick many beats on that that i need to hear again outside of the intro and “2nd Childhood.”
I Am… is nice though, once you edit out all the bad radio-play attempts (that had no chance of being hits anyway)
— Trey Stone Jan 13, 12:57 AM
Post illmatic, many of the following albums were either 1 or two hits away from a classic. The lyrics remained strong and the messages between the “words” always breath taking.
— P Jan 15, 03:40 AM
saka unofunga kuti pane zvavataura ipapo? Uri dhodhi enda unofa.
— Chamunorwa Jan 15, 10:50 AM
Just wanted to stop in and show love to blog author.
I caught this article in the Google Reader a few days back and just got around to reading it.
With that said, this is one of the dopest pieces I’ve read on any blog in a min.
Keep the good work up fam.
— Manny B. Jan 16, 09:14 PM
Well said regarding this blog, I feel Nas doesn’t get nearly as much credit as he should. We love our hip hop so much we criticize a bit too often when a genius such as Nas or Andre expands on the idea of what Hip Hop is. If they didn’t it wouldn’t be fresh anymore. And that resulting staleness from those who want only a certain hip hop sound hurts the very thing underground hip hop heads want to protect; the art.
— Selfwise Feb 6, 08:34 PM
^ that’s weird you say that cuz “Stillmatic” is exactly the kind of hip-hop head-appeasing album i tend to not like very much.
in general i don’t really see how Nas has really been trying to “expand” hip hop in a way comparable to Andre/OutKast. i guess his concept songs (which’re hit-and-miss) could be seen that way. otherwise, not really.
— Trey Stone Feb 6, 10:23 PM
as for Andre, i’d disagree some with the Doc’s comment. if all of “Love Below’d” been on par with the first half, any “genius” talk may’ve been at least somewhat justified. unfortunately after “Roses” it self-destructs
— Trey Stone Feb 6, 10:30 PM
for the most part, i agree, nas falls off but i think few people have dove into the depths of there own head and history to really understand Nas, and all the poetry he spits. all albums are covered wit alliteration and other poetic devices many people dont even hear. as far as neo soul and common and mos def and andre, thats bullshit, those three are some of the most talented artist period. everyone can go hard when they had a bad day at work, but no one wants to sit and think, and reflect, which is what hip hop is based on, reflecting on black/ghetto culture through american history
— Rob Sep 25, 03:09 AM