I guess all Nas needed was some motivation to get back on track, and all thanks to Jay-Z, Nas put out this 2001 rap classic, Stillmatic. As you may already know, Jay-Z dissed Nas a lot on his album, The Blueprint, saying that Nas had an average of one hot album per ten years. Nas - Stillmatic - Amazon.com Music. However, the albums finest artistic moment comes on 'Rewind,' where Nas crafts a sexploit and murder-filled 'hood.
Get Apple Music on iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows
14 Songs, 56 Minutes
EDITORS’ NOTES
Nas’ feud with Jay-Z helped him find his footing again after several years of identity crisis. As he explains on “You’re the Man,” “My destiny found me / It was clear why the struggle was so painful / Metamorphosis, this is what I changed to / And God, I'm so thankful.' The Jay-Z dis track “Ether” becomes a channel for all of Nas’ pent-up fury, while returning him to the fundamental battle raps of early hip-hop. The rest of Stillmatic follows suit, as Nas forgoes the pop concessions of his previous albums and assembles a team of New York’s finest producers, including the Hitmen, Large Professor, DJ Premier, and Salaam Remi. In returning to the moody, street-oriented soundscapes of his early work, Nas refocused his writing and came up with some of his sharpest stories to date. In “2nd Childhood” he revisits his Queensbridge housing project to describe several acquaintances stuck in arrested development, while “Rewind” is a blinding display of storytelling virtuosity, as Nas recounts a shooting in reverse, line-by-line, from end to beginning. The centerpiece track, “One Mic,” encapsulates Nas’ dual natures, as he works himself up in a frenzy of conspiratorial connections and shoot-up memories, only to calmly repeat the mantra that could serve as a epigram for his career: “All I need is one mic.”
EDITORS’ NOTES
Nas’ feud with Jay-Z helped him find his footing again after several years of identity crisis. As he explains on “You’re the Man,” “My destiny found me / It was clear why the struggle was so painful / Metamorphosis, this is what I changed to / And God, I'm so thankful.' The Jay-Z dis track “Ether” becomes a channel for all of Nas’ pent-up fury, while returning him to the fundamental battle raps of early hip-hop. The rest of Stillmatic follows suit, as Nas forgoes the pop concessions of his previous albums and assembles a team of New York’s finest producers, including the Hitmen, Large Professor, DJ Premier, and Salaam Remi. In returning to the moody, street-oriented soundscapes of his early work, Nas refocused his writing and came up with some of his sharpest stories to date. In “2nd Childhood” he revisits his Queensbridge housing project to describe several acquaintances stuck in arrested development, while “Rewind” is a blinding display of storytelling virtuosity, as Nas recounts a shooting in reverse, line-by-line, from end to beginning. The centerpiece track, “One Mic,” encapsulates Nas’ dual natures, as he works himself up in a frenzy of conspiratorial connections and shoot-up memories, only to calmly repeat the mantra that could serve as a epigram for his career: “All I need is one mic.”
TITLE
TIME
14 Songs, 56 Minutes
Released: Dec 18, 2001
℗ 2001 Sony Music Entertainment Inc.
* New subscribers only. Plan automatically renews after trial.
On Jay-Z’s “takeover,” one of the many vicious volleys in the ongoing Nas/Jay-Z battle, Jigga brutally sums up Nas’ back catalog, crediting him with “one hot album every ten years, average.” He’s got a point – aside from his classic 1994 debut, Illmatic, the Queens-bred rapper’s output has been uneven, to put it nicely. The fact that he invokes the name of his beloved first album with Stillmatic only makes the new disc’s shortcomings more pronounced.
Stillmatic, his fifth full-length, isn’t a complete washout. The Jay-Z beef has brought out the best in both MCs, and on “Ether” Nas lands some solid jabs, ridiculing Jay’s sparse mustache, tai-bo workouts and Hawaiian shirts. On “You’re Da Man,” Large Professor’s moody strings and spare boom-clap beat set the scene for some nightmarish introspection. “What Goes Around,” an inflamed indictment of evils ranging from TV and religion to poor parenting and plastic surgery, drives with knee-buckling intensity. Even “Got Ur Self a . . . ,” with its twinkly toy harpsichord and booming Sopranos-theme-song chorus, sounds fine after a few listens.
Sadly, the cuts that reveal Nas’ depth and drive get lost in a jumble of sloppy filler. The hyperbolic urgency of “One Mic” feels staged, the trick of backward storytelling on “Rewind” comes off gimmicky and rushed, and the cadence that Nas rocks on “Smokin’ ” sounds startlingly elementary. Striving to maintain street cred while reaching for pop success has left Nas vacillating clumsily on past projects, and this record is riddled with similar inconsistencies. One moment he casts himself as a gritty cat who feels most at home on a project bench, calling out neighborhood snakes (“Destroy and Rebuild”) and ducking gunshots (“One Mic”). The next, he’s delivering dumbed-down verses over the Track Masters’ rinky-dink rendition of Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.”
In the end, there’s little here to refute Jay-Z’s harsh assessment of his rival’s discography. “This is my ending and my new beginning,” Nas spits on the album’s intro. But for an artist who built his rep traversing breath-defying lyrical heights, Stillmatic’s by-the-books beats and rhymes don’t sound like the start of anything good.