I was initially going to make a thread about my opinion of the greatness of Hip Hip Is Dead, which I feel is highly overlooked (as is Streets Disciple) but then my senses kicked in and wondered how peopled ranked his entire catalog? I know this has been done before, but I love the convo so fuck it. I am including The Lost Tapes and Distant Relatives, but not The Firm cause that was more of a real group effort and really Nas was only on a third of the album. At least he was on every joint off DR although it was not a straight Hip Hop album per se.
1. illmatic
2. IWW
3. The Lost Tapes
4. Life Is Good
5. Stillmatic
6. Hip Hop Is Dead
7. Distant Relatives
8. Street's Disciple
9. I Am..
10. God's Son
11. Untitled
12. Nastradamus
I'm sure the first 2 and last 2 are consensus, but the meat lives in the middle 8 and I'm curious how you all rank them.
10.
lost tapes isn't that great imo. highlights to me are "poppa was a playa" and "blaze a 50". none of the others i'm that crazy about. especially "everybody's crazy".
life is good is pretty abysmal imo. there are a couple joints, but nastradamus has a couple too. the project windows/come get me/shoot em up/last words stretch is tuff. and that's not even counting the "life we chose" song that everyone seems to like so much, or "family" with mobb.
god's son i fuck with heavy. i actually love that plodding eminem beat; listening to it is like dragging a cross up a hill. highlights from this album are among nas's finest material.
agree with you also on street's disciple, it's bloated but so is every double album. the title track (disc 2 track 2, not track 7 on disc 1) is an underrated nas classic, really one of his best songs.
so here's my ranking
1. illmatic
2. IWW
3. god's son
4. stillmatic
5. distant relatives
6. street's disciple
7. HHID
8. IAM
9. untitled
10. nastradamus
11. lost tapes
12. life is bad
btw i think untitled was totally gutted by the label. from the name change, to the title track getting cut (that he'd already released a video for), to cutting weird far out shit like "fear of mandingo", it was the worse label fuck up in a career full of em.
The fact that Lost Tapes and Life is Good are your worst is bewildering to me. Drunk By Myself, Doo Rags, No Idea's Original, My Way, Purple, and Make It Last Forever, aside from what you mentioned make it a classic in my eyes.
Life Is Good is a stellar album overall. I know people are never satisfied with a Nas album post IWW, but that shit met every requisite as far as I'm concerned.
AS you praise God's Son, I still question you, and anyone else who praises this album. Don't get me wrong, it's good, but I prefer so many subsequent albums as superior.
god's son starts stronger than anything but illmatic.
get down
the cross
made you look
last real nigga alive
but then it actually keeps the momentum going with the softer tracks. hey nas, i can are lowkey dope. the alc joints are nice too, and then the outro revolutionary warfare-mama-heaven wind down the album nicely. heaven in particular is such a great beat to end an album.
lost tapes is just a good compilation. actually a bit underwhelming considering all nas's unreleased discog. honestly the songs i named are the only ones that blow me away. the ones you named are all good, but really nothing moving me.
life is good... is just sad. intro is weak, i like queens story, locomotion is good but kinda by the numbers. accident murderers is really the only great song on there, but the way the verse leads into the chorus is kinda botched bothers me. only other joint i'd really point out is "world's an addiction". the mary j & amy songs are nice but nas doesn't really belong on them. imho the album was received well only cause there aren't any completely embarrassing tracks -- it's more consistent than the preceding albums but the high points aren't there.
EMCEE DARTH MALEK wrote:imho the album was received well only cause there aren't any completely embarrassing tracks -- it's more consistent than the preceding albums but the high points aren't there.
and cause praising nas is the goto boom bap purist virtue signaling move these days. what else could explain the widespread ballriding of "nas album done" ?
1. Illmatic
2. Lost Tapes
3. It Was Written
4. Stillmatic
5. God's Son
6. I Am
7. Nastradamus
8. Street's Disciple
9. Life is Good
I don't really care for the rest,. I love The Lost Tapes though, and it's pretty easily my 2nd favorite. I love It Was Written, Stillmatic, and God's Son too. Pretty big drop off after the first 5.
After the first 5 or 6, I don't even recall them that much to properly rank.
1. Illmatic
2. IWW
3. Stillmatic
4. I Am
5. The Lost Tapes
6. God’s Son
7. Life Is Good
8. Hip-Hop Is Dead
9. Street’s Disciple
10. Untitled
11. Nastradamus
pradadon wrote:I was initially going to make a thread about my opinion of the greatness of Hip Hip Is Dead, which I feel is highly overlooked (as is Streets Disciple) but then my senses kicked in and wondered how peopled ranked his entire catalog? I know this has been done before, but I love the convo so fuck it. I am including The Lost Tapes and Distant Relatives, but not The Firm cause that was more of a real group effort and really Nas was only on a third of the album. At least he was on every joint off DR although it was not a straight Hip Hop album per se.
1. illmatic
2. IWW
3. The Lost Tapes
4. Life Is Good
5. Stillmatic
6. Hip Hop Is Dead
7. Distant Relatives
8. Street's Disciple
9. I Am..
10. God's Son
11. Untitled
12. Nastradamus
I'm sure the first 2 and last 2 are consensus, but the meat lives in the middle 8 and I'm curious how you all rank them.
10.
1. IWW
2. Illmatic
3. The Lost Tapes
4. Nastradamus
5. I am
6. God's Son
7. Stillmatic
8. Life is Good
9. Street's Disciple
10. Untitled
11. Hip Hop is Dead
12. Distant Relatives
illmatic and it was written are the only nas albums where i can identify what songs are on them....i think ive heard all the tracks from natsradamus...i am....stillmatic and gods son but i have no clue which songs are on which albums
ive literally never heard of distant relatives or life is good
pradadon wrote:
1. illmatic
2. IWW
3. Stillmatic
4. The Lost Tapes
5. I Am..
6. God's Son
7. Nastradamus
8. Hip Hop Is Dead
9. Life Is Good
10. Untitled
11. Street's Disciple
Street's Disciple might be the worst double album ever made.
Say what you will about Nastradamus and I am, but at the end of the day they still had Life We Chose, Project Windows, Come Get Me, Family, N.Y. State of Mind Pt. II, Ghetto Prisoners, Nas Is Like, Undying Love etc.
wtf does Life is Good have? Daughters?
Fine, for a rapper hittin 40 it's a very good album, but it doesn't compare to his 92-02 shit.
I think being a Nas fan as I am I look at his albums differently than people who loved him when he came out but were never enamored with him enough to give him the benefit of the doubt. I never compare his current albums over the years to the earlier ones because I knew that would mean I likely would never like anything. I mean, comparing any album to illmatic or any other classic is tough. That was just not an option for me, because even to this day I can count on 1 hand the number of rappers who can rhyme as well as he does.
I listen to Hip Hop Is Dead for example and find it to be great. Not saying classic cause everyone throws that fuckin word around too much for one, but also because it is nowhere near a classic. That doesn't mean it isn't great. Aside from Who Killed It, I love the entire album. He rhymes his ass off as usual and the songs are genuinely dope. Streets Disciple is highly flawed, but there are great fuckin songs on that album. Message To The Feds, Nazarath Savage, Sekou Story/Live Now, Reason, Just A Moment, Suicide Bounce, Streets Disciple, War, Theif's Theme would make a solid LP. Making it a double with all the other bullshit is what drags it down. I think it is a better album overall than Blueprint 2 so to me it is not the worst double album. Blueprint 2 is the same shit, when it's on it is great but the bad stuff is really bad. Wu Tang Forever and All Eyez On Me suffer the same fate albeit to a much lesser degree. Life After Death is really the only ill double IMO. Who knows how people would look at Nas' career had the real double I AM dropped as intended? illmatic, IWW, and the real I AM would have been a much better run than illmatic, IWW, I AM and Nastradamus as it came out. Jay wouldn't have been able to spit that line about his albums if that happened.
I'm not going to sit here and write a 20 paragraph post, but the truth is Nas is the most hated on MC of all time and though once in a while it is justified, more often than not he is just held to such a high standard that it's almost pointless to talk about it. The guy rarely makes a commercial song but still manages to maintain platinum status.
As for Life Is Good, that album has fuckin joints man. Not calling you out Carlos, but really if you think Daughters is all it has to offer you either just don't want to like it so you don't or you need to go back and listen again.
Back when Life Is Good was bout to come out I was chilling in the crib with a few of my boys smoking and drinking and jumped on the turntables to play some favorite Nas songs. Didn't actually mix them but this plays out like a continuous mix. Shit is perfect to ride out.
01. LIVIN' IT
02. ESCO LET'S GO
03. I HAVE TO
04. SERIOUS FT. AZ
05. STILLMATIC INTRO
06. ESCOBAR 97
07. FAMILY FT. MOBB DEEP (DJ ELI REMIX)
08. GHETTO PRISONERS (VAPORIZED BLEND)
09. STREETS DISCIPLE
10. NOTHING LASTS FOREVER
11. HOLD DOWN THE BLOCK
12. ONE PLUS ONE
13. FIND YA WEALTH
14. LIFE IS WHAT YOU MAKE IT FT. DMX (VAPORIZED BLEND)
15. LIFE WE CHOSE
16. BREATHE
17. FILM
18 DON'T BODY YOURSELF
19. UNTITLED
Judging Nas studio albums is only half the story on his career. His vast unreleased catalog and all of the blend tapes that were made of his material in the 2000's need to be taken into consideration as well.
GUCCI CONDOMS wrote:Judging Nas studio albums is only half the story on his career. His vast unreleased catalog and all of the blend tapes that were made of his material in the 2000's need to be taken into consideration as well.
True indeed. Only Pac and maybe Mobb Deep rival the unreleased, remixed, and blended catalog of Nas.
senses kicked in and wondered how peopled ranked his entire catalog? I know this has been done before, but I love the convo so fuck it. I am including The Lost Tapes and Distant Relatives, but not The Firm cause that was more of a real group effort and really Nas was only on a third of the album. At least he was on every joint off DR although it was not a straight Hip Hop album per se.
