illmatic XX

[Kid That's Lifeless]

Listened to Illmatic in my car today. Sounded fine.

[aeokq]

Hell yeah, Boxcar Sessions. I'd say it is about equal with Illmatic in terms of musical quality. Lyrically, Illmatic is superior. In terms of impact and influence, it isn't even close. Illmatic is the better album.

I've never even heard Fadanuf Fa Erybody. *shrug* Guess I better buy that one.

When I think of albums on par with Illmatic I think of The Sun Rises in the East, 93 'til Infinity, Ironman, The Infamous...there are maybe 10-12 at the most I could name. I could name many albums that I personally enjoy more, but if I'm being completely objective I can't put many ahead.

[ackbar]

ready to die, outkast & get in where you fit in/buhloone mindstate (carried over from 93) dominated my listening habits the year of illmatic. that might be just b/c it was impossible to buy everything back then & i didn't own nas when it dropped.. but i don't like illmatic more than any of those.
boxcar sessions & kokane are not on that level tho

[stype_ones]

It Take a Nation Of Millions, Death Certificate, The Low End Theory, The Chronic..

To me, these are albums that are truly on the illmatic level.

The beauty of music is that it is subjective. As long as you are not saying some crazy shit, no one should get tight if someone says they think an album is as good or better than another.

The conciseness of illmatic is a con to many, however I feel it is a pro and is what makes it the best album to me. In such a short period of time, Nas was able to capture pretty much every emotion there is while rhyming at an extremely high level. Couple that with the flawless production that it actually intertwines with the lyrics of each track perfectly with respect to each song's topic/idea, the album is just perfection.

[Blockhead]

except that your audiophile claim is entirely rooted in authenticity. good bass can happen without a car, audio fidelity is not directly tied to anybody's trunk, yet you keep talking about cars which are entirely culture-specific in this situation

Also, passenger seats exist.

[step one]

Rollin in my 6-4, brb

[multsanta]

imo illmatic is not seeing diary or ready to die or resurrection when it comes to mining for personal and emotional depths what with nas mostly writing from his journalistic distance. it lacks the political refinement and humor and narrative cohesion of genocide and juice. it's not seeing southernplayalistik or ridin dirty or main ingredient on a musically musical or thump level. i think hard to earn could probably give it a good run for its money on the traditionalist boom bap production front too. boxcar and stress are just sick as fuck and a thousand years ahead of their time in terms of rhyme style, etc., etc. different music does different things and different people want different things from music.

personally i'm more interested in revelatory music than music that brings comfort and i tend to still find new things inside all of those other records that blow my head back when i revisit them. i love the shit out of illmatic and in terms of formal construction it probably is the "best" album mentioned in this thread but i also feel like i had most of it figured out when i was sixteen. i don't want to call it shallow or superficial because it's obviously a very heavy record in its own right but it doesn't feel like there's much left to unpack within.

of course part of that is probably due to the fact that nobody has been able to shut the fuck up about it for the past twenty years to the point where its mythology fills the room and suffocates anything even resembling serious conversation or dissent cf this stupid fucking thread. if some dude would rather listen to 5th ward boyz than life's a bitch then at least let that man cook and tell you why.

[multsanta]

btw this was the only half interesting thing i saw in the flood of press from this week http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/interview ... cer-credit it doesn't offer a ton of insight per se but does a good job of fleshing out some factual details that i was previously unaware of.

those whos whats and wheres still feel weirdly skeletal for a record that has had eight different reissues and six different books written about it. but grad school motherfuckers would rather harp on about its JAZZ IMPULSE LIKE JOHN COLTRANE and limp dick magazines would sooner get jose badass to be all ITS A CLASSIC YO MY DAD PLAYED IT FOR ME IN OUR TARUS than actually try and place it in a proper historical context.

[Larry2times]

My drivers licence is out of date tbh

[Philaflava]

Lots of crazy talk. I know the Nas backlash runs deep, but his album was more influential than most that have been mentioned in this thread. It aged well. This is all coming from a 19-20 year old boy, so of course he might not be as refined as other rappers.

The lyricism and production combo on this album has been the best we've seen since. If you don't like Nas or kinda whatever about NYC raps, then yeah. you may not hold this near and dear.

But there isn't a song on any other album mentioned in this thread as good or better as NY State of Mind or Memory Lane.

[drizzle]

The conciseness of illmatic is a con to many, however I feel it is a pro

agree 100%

an album that feels too short but still makes it's impact, especially this well >>>>>>>> an album that feels a few songs too long even if none of them are glaringly bad

[peanut butter]

Thought it was universally accepted that the relatively short playtime of Illmatic was one of its most endearing elements?


PEACE

[AWAE]

anybody know how many records this sold?

[multsanta]

841

[AWAE]

seems low

[Philaflava]

not sure the need to buy this yet again. i was thinking about it just for shits and giggles but then realized i have all the good bonus tracks anyways. is the sound quality that much better than the one they released 10 years ago? i don't see a need to buy this again, besides i'm sure almost all of us have downloaded one of those remixes (or the entire) album anyways. get on down should have done this with double disc.

[Spartan]

anybody know how many records this sold?

Don't know the exact figure but IIRC Illmatic didn't go platinum until around 2001.

[Escobar305]

On Thursday (April 17) wordsmith Boldy James positioned himself to make a significant mark on the hip-hop industry. Aligning himself with legendary rapper Nas, the Detroit lyricist has officially signed to the newly launched Mass Appeal Record label.

Boldy who released his debut album “My 1st Chemistry Set”, produced entirely by The Alchemist, in October, will become Nas first artist signed to the imprint.

Rumors began to surface when the Queens emcee mentioned Boldy on twitter and featured him at SWSX in Austin, TX during the Mass Appeal showcase, as well as recent videos premiering on the Mass Appeal Youtube channel.

This is not only a great move for the Boldy James camp, but for the Detroit as well, a city that has begun to be mentioned amongst the top locations for breed hip hop artists.

[LameAim]

Influence Infographic on Illmatic. Stolen from Grantland.

http://espngrantland.files.wordpress.co ... al-red.jpg

[Mindbender Futurama]

The conciseness of illmatic is a con to many, however I feel it is a pro

agree 100%

an album that feels too short but still makes it's impact, especially this well >>>>>>>> an album that feels a few songs too long even if none of them are glaringly bad

but I still love 'Reasonable Doubt', and 'Low End Theory' and 'It Takes A Nation of Millions...' and 'Efil4zaggin' and 'Stankonia' too, and they have nice things that 'Illmatic' doesn't. My tastes alone, but I've always felt this way, as much as I love every song on it. I heard the whole album except for one song when I got it, and I came from the school of Chuck D's 'Fear of a Black Planet' (which I worshipped since 1990, and was a HUMONGOUS MASTERPIECE of an album) and KRS-One's 'By Any Means Necessary' and Big Daddy Kane's and Rakim's shits, which were never as short... even Ice-T's "Power" was a broader picture, and that album was a huge part of my childhood. Fuck, EPMD's 'Business As Usual' made my life awesome and that shit was not skimpy on the hotsauce either. Plus Geto Boys self-titled album was another album that pushed my head beyond limits of wow. Awww, fuck how can I forget: "Amerikkka's Most Wanted" was a sprawling juggernaut of gangsta rap magic. I BEENT loving long albums long before 'Illmatic' came into my life. Nas is the best, but still... shit ain't perfect.

He's my favorite MC ever, but I actually prefer 'Stillmatic' in some ways, and 'God's Son' in some ways, and FOR SURE 'The Lost Tapes' and all the stuff recorded around the 'I Am' supposed-double-album sessions... on some days, I prefer that version of Nasty Nas over the 'Illmatic' Nasir.

:kanyeshrug:

[battlecatmeowstab212]

Fadanuf Fa Erybody comes close.

i'll give you diary and super tight because they're masterpieces hinged on point of origin, which could be said about illmatic as well.

but no on odd squad. just no. not even in the same fucking ballpark. and I LIKE this album a whole whole lot too. it's an album that never got its due on release, and then got wildly overblown when it was redisocvered in mid-00s. i'm pretty sure that even anybody involved in making this album, up to and including J Prince himself, would laugh you out of the room for saying some shit like that

Scarface considers it the best album Rap-A-Lot ever put out.

[Escobar305]

infamous sounds the best in the whip. to me, it remains the best classic to play in the car

[BadLT]

You guys are so right. What was I thinking. Of course Nas is the best rapper ever and Illmatic is the best rap album of all time. The production on this album is the best I have ever heard. And of course NY rap is obviously the only one that really matters when it come to classic material. Thank you so much for opening my eyes.

[Combo7]

Non-East coast inferiority complexes on full display in this thread.

[stems]

Think the LP have anything to do with its conciseness? This whole album fits on a single vinyl record.

Also, not sure if this has been mentioned, but Spotify profiles Illmatic under its Landmarks series. Features interviews with Nas, Large Pro, Premier, Pete Rock and a Columbia exec.

[sleazy_j]

if what MC Serch says on The Champs podcast is true, and he really did get Nas "whatever points Billy Joel was getting per album sale" back then, the album would have been a major burden to the label.
if that was the case, i'm sure they were definitely interested in marketing the hell out of it, making it the more popular (but not best selling) rap album of that year.
hence all the grandiose talk of it up to current day.

as far as it being able to fit on one vinyl? who cares. cats still hung outside with boxes back then. even the jazzy jeff and fresh prince album was double vinyl but fit 80 minutes on one cassette.

[Mindbender Futurama]

I just wanted MOAR NAS YO

'Infamous' is a pretty long-ass album and that's what makes it so much like a deadly high school fieldtrip all through Queensbridge. And ALL the albums are pretty long, even 'Liquid Swords' is pretty lengthy and GZA loves brevity and being invisible like an assassin's knife into the kidneys.

In my imperfect opinion, Nas knew 'Illmatic' was too short, because 'It Was Written' has at least 5 or 6 more songs on it. Like full songs with three verses and intros and outros, and much more music in general.

whatevs, yo. I just love and appreciate the fact that I was born and aware of 'Illmatic' in 1994 when it came out.

I swear to all things holy, if I'm EVER in a coma, just play 'The World is Yours' on repeat to me in the hospital bed... and I will wake up

[stype_ones]

NPR interview with Ali Shaeed:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/MicrophoneChec ... r-illmatic

[ackbar]

thx i'll check that out. the e-40 was tight

[peanut butter]

the e-40 was tight

It was. Problem is tho that 40 Water is an infinitely more interesting character than Nas


PEACE