With a second tribute album on its way, Nas's Illmatic is becoming a totem for hip-hop purists. Richard Watson gets into the NY state of mind
Hip-hop fans know the drill by now. Every time Nas preps another project, rumours circle that this, finally, will be the album on which the self-crowned "King Poetic" abandons the R&B cameos, Toto samples and controversy-courting titles and recaptures the gritty authenticity of Illmatic, the New Yorker's timeless 1994 debut.
But while Nas has never recaptured that Illmatic magic, it hasn't prevented others from trying too. Cali rapper Fashawn started the trend when he released a left-coast remake/tribute to the album called Ode To Illmatic. And now Detroit's Elzhi is, with the help of a live band, riding the same beats on his Elmatic mixtape. Layering trademark witty wordplay and fast-moving flow over classic tracks, the former Slum Village lyricist resurrects the spirit of his source material and rises above mere hip-hop karaoke. To quote Nasir Jones himself, though, It Ain't Hard To Tell why today's rappers are paying tribute to his debut album. Illmatic has become a totem, a work that both looked back into hip-hop history and pointed towards its future.
With samples from both the seminal 1983 hip-hop flick Wild Style and Nas's own recorded debut (on Main Source's 1991 posse cut Live At The Barbecue), opening track The Genesis set the tone for listeners; this was a record both reassuringly traditional and fascinatingly futuristic. Released in 1994 when the sinewy, party-vibe G-Funk of Dre, Snoop and their cronies was at its peak, Illmatic exposed the listener to Nas's desolate Queensbridge stomping ground. Though Marley Marl's legendary Juice Crew had repped The Bridge in a braggadocious back-and-forth with KRS-One in the 80s, Nas now painted a more intimate picture of life in and around America's most expansive public housing development. Just as NWA had once been to Compton, so Nas was to Queensbridge.
Then a 20-year-old tour guide, Nas was no dispassionate megaphone wielder. Brought into sharp focus by Illmatic's less-is-more approach (nine full tracks plus intro; a solitary guest verse from AZ), his persona was that of the Heineken-swigging, weed-smoking, high-school dropout whose poetry pierces through the gloom of his surroundings.
Illmatic's oft-imitated album cover shot ? a portrait of the artist as a serious-looking shorty ? suggested an old head on young shoulders, and it was a formula that worked. By delivering his asphalt narratives with poetic poignancy and a novelist's eye for detail, Nas appealed equally to the street-schooled corner kid and the Rakim-raised hip-hop connoisseur.
"I'm not your legal type of fella," Nas rhymed, but his skills were undeniably legit. Just ask the elite roster of knob-twiddlers ? Premier, Pete Rock, Q-Tip, Large Professor and L.E.S. ? who lined up to provide Illmatic's exemplary sonic backdrops. In fact, combine those tough, frequently soulful compositions with the street-steeped musings and masterful mic technique of Nasty Nas and you have a flawless template for the type of "real" hip-hop that's all too rare in the ringtone and Auto-Tune era.
No wonder Illmatic still has hip-hoppers taking that trip down Memory Lane ?
Elzhi's Elmatic is released on 10 May
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/apr/30/nas-illmatic-elzhi-elmatic-mixtape
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