Hiphop Archive and Research Institute - Liner Notes: Nas, Illmatic (1994) lyrics

Born September 14, 1973, a black youth named Nasir (which means “helper and protector” in Arabic) grows up in the notorious Queensbridge Housing Projects in Queens, NY. He is raised largely by his hardworking mother Ann Jones, who provides a loving and stable household despite the ghetto's oppressive social environment. Though highly intelligent, desirous of knowledge, and bursting with creativity, the young man becomes disillusioned with school, losing all respect for his teachers, and drops out after only eight years of formal education. There are numerous books in his home, though, and learning is valued there, so he continues his studies informally, devouring works of black history and expanding his vocabulary. Yet, surrounded by poverty, crime, and alienation, and in possession of few job sk**s, Nasir hears the call of the streets—drug dealing, theft, robbery, gambling—and, to some extent, heeds it. But he comes from a long line of musicians, including his father Olu Dara (a jazz artist), and is early exposed to the venerable African American musical tradition. Hiphop is thriving as a commercial enterprise, and the young man has a distinctive voice and exceptional talent for rhyming rhythmically over beats. So the call of the street is not the only voice he hears. There is also the call to create sonic urban art with literary content. He is searching not only for a way to make money but for his place in the world, one that properly rewards the expression of his considerable gifts and allows him to stay true to his street origins but that won't land him in the penitentiary or the morgue. Fortunately, for him, and for us all, he finds it: Illmatic. Prior to the release of Illmatic, Nas had three credits to his name. On the strength of his remarkable verse on the posse track “Live at the BBQ” from Breaking Atoms (1991), Nas drew the intense interest of producer Faith Newman and rapper/producer MC Serch at Columbia Records. MC Serch featured Nas on “Back to the Grill” and, at Serch's urging, Nas contributed “Halftime” (which later appeared on Illmatic) to the soundtrack for the film Zebrahead (1992). Contract with Columbia signed in 1992, it was time to get to work on the album. Five producers, many household names in the NYC hip hop community, were a**embled for the project: DJ Premiere, Pete Rock, Q-Tip, L.E.S., and Large Professor. Hiphop beats are all about combining the old with the new, using the latest technology to fuse the multiple sound elements into a coherent whole. Accordingly, the tracks on Illmatic sample not only from other rap records but from a variety of earlier musical genres—blues, jazz, funk, soul, R&B—drawing on artists such as Ahmad Jamal and Donald Byrd, Parliament and George Clinton, Kool & the Gang and The Gap Band, Stanley Clarke and Michael Jackson. These carefully crafted beats, which sometimes included vocals from the producers themselves, were the sonic foundation for Nas's lyrical edifice. Of course, gangsta rap was in full bloom on the West Coast, from Straight Outta Compton (1988) to Doggystyle (1993). There was 2Pacalypse Now (1991) and Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z (1993) by the inimitable 2Pac, a bridge figure born in Harlem but whose sound and style were more City of Devils than Rotten Apple. And there were East Coast counterparts in the subgenre. Indeed, Nas's gritty subject matter and use of vivid metaphor puts one in mind of Kool G Rap and Big Daddy Kane on the cla**ic posse cut “The Symphony” (1988) produced by Marley Marl (also from Queensbridge). However, with Illmatic, Nas took New York gangsta rap, or so-called hardcore hip hop, to the next level as a popular art form, inaugurating an East Coast Renaissance that included such cla**ic works as Notorious B.I.G.'s Ready to Die (1994) and Jay Z's Reasonable Doubt (1996). But in terms of vocal styling and lyricism, Nas's most important predecessor is the Long Island native Rakim, who, by raising the standard for lyrical craft, did as much as anyone to elevate rap from party music to an art form. Indeed, the title for Nas's “N.Y. State of Mind” comes, not from Billy Joel, but from Rakim's “Mahogany” (1990), and The God's voice is sampled throughout the track. These two giants of rap have a similar laidback, smooth melodic flow. Though capable of swift delivery, they mostly operate at medium tempo, with crisp enunciation, giving listeners the time and the lucidity to take in the full force of their ideas. Their pens are more like paintbrushes, as each draws a graphic, faithful, and intimate portrait of New York's black urban landscape from an insider's perspective. Like Rakim, Nas is synonymous with lyrical sk**, more a writer than an MC that improvises mid performance. He has a poet's sense of rhyme, timing, and wordplay. His raps don't fight with the music but blend seamlessly with it, often adding to its head-bobbing magic. The LP was immediately well received by critics, garnering high praise from The Source to the Village Voice. It is difficult to overstate the influence of the album. It has been sampled and quoted by countless musical artists (Common, The Coup, Eminem, Alicia Keys, Beastie Boys, Joey Bada$$). On Jay Z's “Dead Presidents” (1996), a sample of Nas's voice from “The World Is Yours” (produced by Pete Rock) serves as the hook: “I'm out for presidents to represent me/I'm out for presidents to represent me/I'm out for dead presidents to represent me.” This controversial sample led to a feud between the two New York natives and rap icons. Yet the battle stayed lyrical and gave us such cla**ic diss tracks as Nas's “Ether” (“I am the truest/Name a rapper I ain't influenced”) and Jay Z's “The Takeover” (“So yeah, I sampled your voice, you was using it wrong/You made it a hot line, I made it a hot song”). The thematic centerpiece of Illmatic is the hard-hitting collage “N.Y. State of Mind,” produced by DJ Premier. The beat is spare with a haunting piano refrain. The rap takes the form of cinematic storytelling (Slick Rick style) about street crime in the ghettos of NYC (“I think of crime when I'm in a New York state of mind”). The song is on wax of what the film Scarface was on screen. It's a gangster drama rooted in reality, announcing that the drug game has changed, becoming ever more violent (“crews without guns are goners”) and drawing more children into its orbit (“Got younger n******gs pulling triggers/bringing fame to their name”). But it is also part fantasy (“Be having dreams that I'm a gangsta/drinking Moets, holding Tecs/Making sure the cash came correct”). It's partly Old School familiar boasting about an MC's lyrical prowess (“I'm like Scarface sniffin' c**aine/Holding an M16/see with the pen I'm extreme”). Like Rakim's use of drug addiction as a metaphor for his proficiency at rhyme making on “Microphone Fiend” (1988), Nas uses street crime as a trope for his lyrical technique (“A smooth criminal on beat breaks”). At one point, he even suggests a subtle underlying political, even revolutionary, agenda (“Time to start the revolution”). The composition is layered in its meaning and repays repeated listening. Nas frequently strikes lyrical gold, dropping those nuggets that your mind can't help but hold onto forever. A number of these are found on “Halftime,” produced by Large Professor. For instance, Nas hits us with this: “I rap in front of more n***as than in the slave ships/I used to watch ‘CHiPs', now I load Glock clips.” Then there's “You couldn't catch me in the streets without a ton of reefer/That's like Malcolm X catching the Jungle Fever.” And this: “I drop j**els, wear j**els, hope to never run it/With more kicks than a baby in a mother's stomach.” The song relies on a break beat from Average White Band's “School Boy Crush,” which is also sampled in Rakim's “Microphone Fiend.” The only other MC featured on Illmatic is AZ (Anthony Cruz), an underappreciated rapper from Brooklyn. In addition to singing the hook that became a ghetto anthem, AZ performed the first verse on “Life's a b**h,” produced by L.E.S. Nas's father Olu Dara (whose name means “God is Good”) plays trumpet on the track. A sample from The Gap Band's “Yearning for Your Love” sets the melancholy mood. AZ's verse is tight, memorable, and includes this gem: “Now some resting in peace and some are sittin' in San Quentin/Others such as myself are tryna carry on tradition/Keeping this Schweppervescent street ghetto essence inside us/Cause it provides us with the proper insight to guide us.” The song title and much of the lyrics might suggest resignation, materialism, and nihilism. But listen closer and one hears echoes of hope and ambition. AZ and Nas are highlighting what the writer Richard Wright once described as the existential “hopeless hope” of those trapped in the ghetto, a hope that, left unrealized due to oppression and lack of opportunity, eventually becomes despair, rebellion, or fratricide. The most poignant song on the album is “One Love,” produced by Q-Tip, who also sings the hook. The track not only invokes the title but samples from Whodini's “One Love” (1986), a song about the challenge of finding and keeping one's true romantic love. Nas raps about brotherly love, but of a special sort. It's the kind of love shared between veterans who served together in war, united by a common trauma and purpose that those who never joined the fight can only faintly understand: “You see the streets had me stressed something terrible/f**ing with the corners have a n***a up in Bellevue.” The song is written as a letter from one friend to another, comrades who've been separated by prison walls: “I left a half a hundred in your commissary/You was my n***a when push came to shove/One what? (One love).” In recent years, scholars have been studying the origins of racialized ma** incarceration and its consequences for disadvantaged black communities. Among the many devastating consequences is widespread parental separation from offspring and the rupture of loving relationships: “Plus congratulations, you know you got a son/I heard he looks like ya, why don't your lady write ya?” Nas raps to keep the spirits up among the ghetto's prisoners of war. Nas is an artist. His debut album is a work of enormous beauty, a cla**ic by any measure. Like many great works of art, Illmatic has a message, a moral. The grim circumstances, the spirit of rebellion, the lost lives, and the determination to survive that are all found in ghetto communities are its subject. The problems a**ociated with the projects, the police, and the prison that Nas dramatizes and reflects on are still with us, as urgent and vexing as they were when the LP was released. Inspiring art is certainly sublime, but it also, at least sometimes, opens our eyes to realities of the human condition we hadn't fully appreciated or perhaps even noticed. This is the category to which Illmatic belongs.