Review Summary: A dissenting opinion of a beloved album.
“A masterpiece”. (The New York Times) “The best hip-hop record ever made” (Prefix Mag). Simply “the greatest album of all time” (PopMatters). These are all phrases that have been bestowed upon Nas’ Illmatic, the rapper’s/poet’s/voice of a generation’s debut and probably best album. A benchmark of hip-hop culture, the record features intelligent lyricism, groundbreaking soulful production and an urban aesthetic that paints violent, sorrowful, powerful pictures as vivid as Nas’ actual wordplay. Or so I’ve been told.
And yet, I can’t get into it.
My background in hip-hop is not as limited as some of my peers’ seems to be. I generally know what are considered the classics of the genre, both old and new-skool, and I’ve been following the recent trends in trap-related sounds and producers like DJ Mustard and Lex Luger. Beyond that, there are a variety of popular hip-hop songs from my youth growing up in the 2000s that I remember fondly (Outkast’s “Roses”, for example or Kanye’s “Gold Digger”) and not so fondly (Soulja Boy, anyone?). So, no, I’m not the utmost authority as to what constitutes a good rhyme or beat, but I like to think I know the inner workings of hip-hop and rap as much as any other semi-professional legitimate music critic.
Which is what makes Illmatic all the more frustrating to me. When nearly every hip-hop fan or publication lists one single album at the very top of what the genre has to offer, I can’t help but be intrigued to check it out. Usually, when I first listen to an album like this, I’m expecting to enjoy the music, if not feel completely blown away by it.
Intro track “The Genesis” starts up, opening to sounds of a train or perhaps a subway going by as an old movie sample plays in the background. An effective way to set the tone for what’s possibly to come. For the rest of the track’s playtime, there’s a bunch of back and forth between Nas and a couple of his buddies about “keep[in’] it real” and “know[ing] what time it is”. Except the song, if you want to call it that, goes nowhere. The track fades out, and “N.Y. State of Mind” begins with no attempt at cohesive transition between the two. To many hip-hop fans, “The Genesis” dictates the album’s ethos and attitude right from the get-go (the last word Nas speaks on the track is the album’s title). To me, it’s a botched attempt at painting the first stroke to what could’ve been a hip-hop masterwork. I don’t really care if you’re ranting about how “*** is mad real right now in the projects”, to quote Nas’ friend Jungle. Tell that to me in an actual song or spit it to me in a “real” verse.
Slightly disappointed, but still willing to charge forward with my listening experience, I press track 2. Wow, that’s a good beat. A really good beat. This might be one of the best beats I’ve ever heard. Jazzy in flavor, but cold, grimy and dark in tone is how I would describe the combination of the bass, piano and drum machine. And Nas. That flow. That style. Those.. lyrics? At this point, I’m scrambling to look to see if the album came with a lyric booklet because…he’s too fast.
Now, when I say too fast, I don’t mean Twista-Busta-style 600-words-per-minute can’t-come-up-for-breath fast. I’m talking the way the words sort of all blend together. To put it succinctly: as soon as I think I’ve got a grasp on what Nas is saying, he’s already 10 sentences ahead of me. Some may call this mind-boggling, and they completely admire the way Nas can handle speed, flow, rhythm and cadence at the same time while still incorporating coherent and personal, meaningful lyricism into his multisyllabic rhyme schemes. I say good on those people if they can comprehend all of that. In contrast, I feel distanced by the sheer amount of talent on display. It’s almost like Nas is an alien who came to Earth one year to grace the mic with his otherworldly skills, and his poetry is so super-intelligent, his songs progress beyond normal human comprehension.
So, “N.Y. State of Mind” ends, I hit pause and try to let the past two or three minutes sink in. Waiting for it to sink in. Waiting. Waiting…
I start the track over again, to see if I maybe missed something the first time. The song plays through again.
Same reaction.
To quote, of all things, Patrick Star in The Spongebob Squarepants Movie, there’s “some kind of psychic wall of energy” that is preventing me from enjoying this album so far. No matter how hard I try, there is a mental barrier between me and my enjoyment of this album that I can’t seem to break. This is what hip-hop heads and music critics deem the “best album ever”? And I’m only on the second song. I start to enter that terrible, terrible headspace that we’ve all experienced at one point of our lives or another: am I the one who’s crazy or is it the whole world around me?
Reluctantly this time, I press onward, hoping beyond hope that Illmatic will redeem itself, and all of my worrying will have been for naught. “Life’s a Bitch”, start.
Again, the beat is amazing, possibly better than the last one. Again, Nas (and rapper AZ joining him for a guest spot) shows off his incredible skill on the mic. And again, I’m not fully enjoying this (tasteful trumpet solos aside).
In fact, throughout the remainder of the albums’ run time, every single track is exactly like the last one in terms of quality. Most listeners of the album have deemed this one of the best things about Illmatic, noting that it’s impossible to skip a track. “This is one of those albums that you can play front to back and not get bored”. And I’m over here, wasting 40 precious minutes of my life when I could be listening to something that doesn’t bore me out of my skull and make me switch on my computer to browse through my godforsaken social media platforms that rule my daily life like Pavlov owned his dog.
Sigh. But I digress.
Perhaps my personal reaction to Illmatic shouldn’t be unexpected. I felt something similar when watching David Lynch’s supposed masterpiece Blue Velvet for the first time as well, agreeing with Roger Ebert’s dissenting view of the film: “What are we being told? That beneath the surface of Small Town, U.S.A., passions run dark and dangerous? Don’t stop the presses.” In the same way, I feel like Nas offers no new story to tell through the course of Illmatic, which details the the dark and dangerous passions that came with Nas growing up as an inner-city teenager in Queensbridge, New York City during the late 1980’s and 1990’s. The album is often credited as the first major hardcore hip-hop record, with all of the imagery of gratuitous drugs, sex, violence and uses of the word “nigga” that this implies. (I know that this doesn’t describe the entire hardcore movement, but it seems to typify a lot of it).
Of course, it’s disingenuous to completely blame Nas for the amount of hardcore rap records that would be influenced by and incorporate these tropes up to the present day. But with great art sometimes comes great responsibility, and Nas could’ve made himself a shining example of where to lead hip-hop over the next couple of decades. Instead, he chose to portray the typical “gangsta” persona (albeit in a much more humble way than many of his peers) that is now unfortunately ubiquitous in hip-hop culture. I’m not faulting Nas for his personal experiences that inspired the album’s lyrics; what I am faulting him for is not knowing the line between portrayal of that gangsta persona and endorsement of the same. The problem is, there virtually is no line between the two, and there almost never has been when it comes to making art, despite many people’s opinions to the contrary. My argument seems to be most in line with that of philosopher and critic Slavoj Žižek, which, in his review of Kathryn Bigelow’s war film Zero Dark Thirty, states “One doesn’t need to be a moralist, or naive about the urgencies of fighting terrorist attacks, to think that torturing a human being is in itself something so profoundly shattering that to depict it neutrally – i.e. to neutralise this shattering dimension – is already a kind of endorsement.” Illmatic falls victim to this same artistic trap: by merely describing his dire childhood poverty-filled circumstances through hard-hitting rhyme and that ever-so-grimy aesthetic, Nas inadvertently reflects the notion that “flippin’ coke or playin’ spit” is a fashionable, almost desirable thing to do. To the multitude of rappers that followed in Nas’ wake, they bought this persona hook, line and sinker.
And I certainly don’t care to hear or endorse that when listening to music.
The opposing argument at this point can be made that nearly all art that breaks boundaries in some way relies on this contradiction. This would be true, as well. But I try to keep in mind that some artists wade through this contradiction better than others. To take a prominent example in the world of popular music, The Beatles’ White Album was actually criticized upon its release not because people didn’t think it was the band’s best work, but because in 1968, the world was literally in turmoil, going through social and cultural upheaval that would affect generations to come. And all John, Paul, George and Ringo did in response to this upheaval was create songs about honey pies and savoy truffles, disappointing those who expected the group to provide somewhat of a musical helping hand through all the chaos of the day.
However, what separates The White Album from Illmatic in its denial of social responsibilities is a sense of fun, a lack of total and utter seriousness about its subject matter. Something like “Piggies” seems to wink at the listener in its deadpan social commentary; “we’re not taking this completely seriously and neither should you”, while something like “Sittin’ in da Park” is more stone-faced about Nas’ childhood memories. Not that the subject matter shouldn’t be taken seriously, but the execution needs, nay, requires a lightness of touch.
At the end of the day, I think the title of “best hip-hop album ever” (if one could bestow such an important title upon a work of art) should probably go to Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet, which was innovative in all the right ways: its original use of sound and sampling, the vocalists’ charisma and lyrical depth, and the profound positive impact it had on the attitudes of the people listening to it. Ilmatic is only defined by some of these traits, and it certainly doesn’t satisfy the latter point. I eventually hope the hip-hop world can look back on Nas’ first album as the beginning of the end, instead of pointing towards a new beginning.
And I mean that in the kindest of ways, no offense to Nasir Jones and his dedicated fans.
