HIP HOP I IGNORED - PART 1
Illmatic was released in 1994, a particularly fertile year for new music. This is the year two classic trip hop LPs were released
Portishead's
Dummy and
Massive Attack's
Protection. Then there were so many UK jungle trax, too numerous to mention. There was also a shitload of British experimental (dare I say Post-Rock before it became a term of derision for American noodling turds) rock happening
Laika,
Disco Inferno, Bark Psychosis, Stereolab, Pram, Scorn, Flying Saucer Attack, Main and
O'rang. Then there was electronic and ambient music
Aphex Twin's
Selected Ambient Works Vol 2, the Virgin comp
Isolationism,
Mouse On Mars, Orbital, Autechre, Global Communication's 76.14, Paul Schutze and the list goes on.
Nick Cave, Pulp, Boredoms, Peter Jefferies, Polvo,
Kristen Hersh and
Burzum all released classic records. Then there were the reissues on
Blood & Fire Records and
Esquival's
Space Age Bachelor Pad Music. Plus way way more. Geez that was a good year for music. The two hip hop albums that did get my attention were
The Beastie Boys Ill Communication and
Snoop's
Doggystyle. Along with
Illmatic, I also missed
Warren G's
Regulate..,
Jeru The Damaaja's
The Sun Rises In The East,
Ice Cube, PE and whoever else.
I had already heard
Nas albeit without my knowledge on
Live At The BBQ,
a track from
Main Source's classic LP from 91
Breaking Atoms. By the time of
Illmatic's release in 94 he was 20 so he'd been a bit of a child prodigy. The line up of producers here was the cream of the 1994 crop. Main Source's
Large Prof, Pete Rock, Q-Tip, DJ Premier and
LES all had a twiddle of the knobs. This was a new era with the classic old school of
PE, NWA etc. and the daisy age fading away and the beginning of
Wu Tang Clan's stranglehold in the east and
G funks commercial dominance. Nas's timing couldn't have been better, making the LP old school, of its time and somehow timeless all at the same time.
The album begins with the splendid trippy funk beats of
The Genesis and
Nas is introduced and then it's quickly into the creepin intensity of
NY State Of Mind. This tune travels the decay of the NewYork underbelly with drugs, guns, crime and violence. This journey through urban hell is state of the art 94 hip hop where "The city never sleeps, it full of villains and creeps.".
Life's a Bitch is a glorious ode to hedonism that features
AZ guesting on vocals. This backing track is so fucking smooth with its
Gap Band sample and a trumpet comin on like something from
Miles Davis's
Big Fun.
The World Is Yours features, apart from the the usual peerless rhymes, some awesome scratching.
Halftime closes side one with its mentions of
Jackson 5 and watching
Chips (hey I used to love that show, even had Chips pyjamas). His rhymes are astonishing as is the backing trak with its dubby horn samples floating in and out of the mix like puffs of smoke.
Side two or
41st Side South starts with
Memory Lane and it's a
Premier production containing a
Rueben Wilson sample of
We're In Love. Choice turntablism blends perfectly with this sweet soul jazz jam.
One Love be a daisy age throwback and that ain't no bad thing here. This is a message to his incarcerated bros that's grasping for optimism amongst the darkness and the rhymes keep flowing like nothing before.
Large Prof gives
One Time 4 Your Mind a sweet minimal mellow vibe to show off Nas's def rhymes.
Represent is another snapshot of a day in the life in the projects of New York, the every day crime and casual violence of it all.
Premier gives this track hypnotic psych beats that you'd be happy to keep listening to for an hour. This is the trippiest of hop.
It ain't Hard To Tell closes out the album with
MJ and
Kool & The Gang samples. The dub inflected beatz are a heavenly haze.
At one stage on
Illmatic Nas claims he has so many rhymes and its hard to disagree, they just flow and wash over you. You catch new snippets each time you listen. You could listen to this album a hundred times and still not know all the words. This is part of its charm, longevity and timelessness I guess.
Illmatic only goes for 40 minutes thus there is no time to really get sick of it. Other artists at the time should have taken note of his quality control. Cds gave rise to too much wasted time and filler.
Ironman by
Ghostface Killah is a favourite of mine but a minute or two of editing may have had everyone thinking that was the best rap LP of all time but
Illmatic is the one most often quoted as that. With a few more listens I might be sayin the same thing but probably not. He's just not mad, smooth, funny or charismatic enough for me. I would however love to hear an instrumental or dub version of
Illmatic, that'd be wicked. I haven't heard other
Nas records but I feel
Illmatic maybe similar to
Tricky's
Maxinquaye. They were both debuts and both considered masterpieces. So how do you top that? Retire after your first record? Then tour it live 20 years later? That would have been cool. Rappers gotta eat though and apparently he's put out some other good records but
Illmatic was always there to haunt him. Luckily now he can tour it for the 20th anniversary and probably make a small fortune. Nobody back then would have dreamt of this concept, let alone it being quite viable and even almost credible.
