Nas - Illmatic

April 19th, 1994.

Columbia

Nas' debut, Illmatic, is the epitome of the perfect record. Ten tracks comprised of nine songs and a short-and-sweet cinematic intro. Forty minutes in length. All hits, no misses. With nothing even close to filler, Illmatic is a rare breed. It features the Who's Who of Hip-Hop producers: DJ Premier; Q-Tip; Pete Rock; Large Professor. An emcee worthy of these producer credits would have to live up to an expected standard; a star-studded producers cast requires a gem of an emcee to complete the circle. 

The menacing bop of N.Y. State of Mind feels like a late-night city stroll. The nocturnal fiends are out to get theirs. The creeps that walk the dark streets breathe deliberate breathes - tomorrow isn't guaranteed. A different kind of animal inhabits the concrete jungle - what's theirs is theirs; from time to time what's yours is theirs too. The rules that govern a civilised society still apply to the city, though they're somewhat more loosely abided by. Loosely, as in bent and broken; disfigured and pulled in ones favour. Ain't nobody gonna save you. Get yours or get gone. Who's world is this? 

Nasir Jones, in his late teens/early twenties, had the pen-game of someone years, decades, further on down the road. Precocious falls short in pinning down the level at such an early stage. It's as if a head start had been acquired at birth; a ticket to mastery handed down from the God's themselves. The building blocks, and with it the foundations, had already been somewhat set and assembled by the time they were turned to and fine tuned. 

The bar set by Illmatic is unreachable. It pretty much sets the gold standard for what Hip-Hop at it's finest hour - finest forty minutes - looks like. All you can really do is look up to it and hope that someday you'll manage to muster up a fraction of its magic. 

'Who's world is this? The world is yours.'