Nas - Hip Hop Is Dead
In his 8th album, the Street’s Disciple creates a wake up call full of musical experimentation and dense wordplay. - by Louie Michaud
Illmatic proved to a bunch of us that Nas has an incomparable talent, and as I’ve said in the past I was not expecting him to repeat his work, but instead make an album that reflects those same abilities. In all honestly I figured this album would be pretty solid, like Stillmatic solid—not at all perfect, but pretty consistent, laced with a few real hits. I did not expect Nas to blow me away with his crazy wordplay on the first track. I did not expect Nas to be so brutally honest with his message, to expose the problems in hip-hop while still remaining poetically optimistic. I did not expect the music to so smoothly cross genres. I did not expect to be speechless as the last 30 seconds of the final song finished. Never have I been happier to be wrong…
Beats have never been Nas’s strongest asset, but with the help of Kanye West, L.E.S., will.i.am, and Dr. Dre, among others, almost every single track on Hip Hop Is Dead is creative enough to hold its own. A few songs, like “Money Over Bullshit,” “Carry On Tradition,” “Play On Playa,” and “Hustlers” are very catchy and straight up solid. There are also a couple tracks, “Not Going Back” and “Let There Be Light,” that utilize the best aspects of modern R&B to the point that the music is gripping and purposeful, instead of being half-assed or boring.
And then there are the biggest standouts, a handful of tracks that make this album very different than a standard hip-hop release. “Who Killed It?” is unconventional in the tightest way ever, with quirky 30’s detective music and punch-line beat breaks that change under the guidance of Nas’s Edward G. Robinson impression (props to my dad for picking up on that one). “Blunt Ashes” is meant to be trippy; Nas’s dragging flow f#%!s with you, especially with the haunting sounds in the background, and even more if you follow his lead and blaze yourself.
To me, “Black Republican” sounds exactly like it should, like the sound of two rap superstars coming together to unite when it’s really needed, even if that wasn’t Jay-Z’s and Nas’s intent. “Still Dreaming” and “Can’t Forget About You” could be seen as huge risks, blending rap with Bossa-Nova/lounge music and jazz ballads, respectively. But this might be the most exciting feature to the album, because the aforementioned songs are so beautiful; they are complete musical compositions that do not sound at all like awkward genre combinations.
I really love the music on this album, but the great thing is that you don’t have to settle on that alone, cuz the lyrics are just as infectious and meaningful. Nas manages to talk about so many different topics: the role of young rappers and the power-imbalance in the music industry (“Carry On Tradition”), living a new life outside the ghetto while still staying true to it (“Black Republican,” “Not Going Back”), getting caught up in the wrong lifestyle (“Still Dreaming”), and how paranoia from weed can complicate expectations as a famous figure (“Blunt Ashes”).
The themes are dark and explicit, but Nas also stays on the positive side. He reminisces of better times (“Can’t Forget About You”), gives props to some of the founders of rap (“Where Are They Now”) and looks forward instead of worrying about how he is perceived in the industry (“Let There Be Light”). On “Who Killed It?” sort of in the same way Common made the song “I Used to Love H.E.R.”, Nas refers to hip-hop as a woman with white gloves and a long cigarette as he cleverly investigates the murder of rap music. On the final track, “Hope,” he breaks the music down into its simplest form, rapping without music, as he defends hip-hop and points out that if anyone is to blame for hip-hop being dead, it’s those who don’t give a shit about it: those who couldn’t care less if it wasn’t there in the first place.
All of this is done so skillfully. In my opinion it is so hard to find any weaknesses in Hip Hop Is Dead. I would say that I really like 14 of the 16 tracks, with the exception of “You Can’t Kill Me” and “Hold Down The Block.” Those two songs are not bad at all, just not as outstanding as everything else. I also do not think it’s a coincidence that the guest appearances of Snoop Dogg, The Game, Kanye West, and the vocal contributions by Chrisette Michele and Tre Williams are very impressive, something that tends to happen with great albums. So what else is there to say? It’s lyrically sharp as hell, the music is technically creative, and the content covers issues that very badly needed to be discussed. Nas has upped his game and created something so amazing that it will hopefully influence certain artists in the industry to work harder, to strengthen a genre that according to God’s Son is in great need of repair. The woman with white gloves reiterates this idea on “Who Killed It?”, saying ”if you really love me/ then I’ll come back alive.”
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