★★★★★
Nas' debut album was released twenty years ago now, and to celebrate, a remastered version of it entitled Illmatic XX has recently been released. Despite the fact that Nas was just 20 at the time of release, this album is widely seen as his masterpiece and used as a benchmark to which other hip hop and rap album of the '90s and today are measured by...
- www.beat.com.au
2014-06-09
★★★★★
Two summers ago, I was dragged on a date that included a trip to Governor's Island. For the unfamiliar, that's the small island between Brooklyn and Manhattan where the Governor's Ball is held. It didn't look like there was much to the community, with its constant quietness, the lack of commercial centers, and just how far removed it was -- or at least felt like -- from regular NYC hustle.
I do credit an otherwise fruitless trip to Governor's for yielding a first for me...
- consequenceofsound.net
2014-04-22
★★★★★
Aside from an obvious inclusion of classic source material, "Illmatic XX" brings little innovation to a project that still holds up on its own after 20 years. For the last 20 years, Nas has both run from and back to Illmatic. He's mocked Golden Era romanticists rhyming, "They thought I'd make another Illmatic, but it's always forward I'm moving / Never backwards stupid, here's another classic" on an album whose very title, Stillmatic, incorporated the name of his crowning...
- www.hiphopdx.com
2014-04-22
★★★★★
Nas - Illmatic XX
By
Joe
Goggins ,
17 April 2014, 12:30 BST
10/10
This review focuses mainly on the original 1994 release of Illmatic, and has been scored accordingly.
Illmatic's original cover art - as well as being considerably subtler than the version above - is iconic now; Nas played with different versions of it for It Was Written, I Am.....
- www.thelineofbestfit.com
2014-04-22
★★★★★
Looking back, Nasir Jones's decision to open his seminal album with a sample from Wild Style - touted as the first hip-hop movie - was both aspirational and prescient. A few minutes later, when Nas mutters, "I don't know how to start this," before breaking into one of the most revered rap records of all time, it sounds like a lightweight humblebrag (it wasn't; he wrote his verse shortly before entering the booth). N.Y...
- nowtoronto.com
2014-04-17
★★★★★
I was seven years old when Columbia Records unleashed " Illmatic " in to the world, forever changing 'Best Rap Album' lists for millions of hip hop fans. Therefore this review is coming from a 'younger' perspective that has grown up knowing that just the word "Illmatic" brings forth such adjectives as 'legendary' and 'classic', and remains many hip hop fans' favourite ever album...
- rapreviews.com
2014-04-18
★★★★★
You hear the arthritic rumble of the train. The 100-ton iron horse clacking at 55 miles per hour through the tunnel to nowhere. Stainless steel cars bombed with balloon letters in bubble gum paint. The F Line, pre-Giuliani, packed with rats and villains, foreigners and flummoxed out-of-towners, beggars, bandits, and sweating working stiffs. Third rails everywhere. It stops at 21st street. Queensbridge exit.
The doors crumple open and the passengers vanish up half-lit stairwells into the Bridge...
- pitchfork.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
"It Was Written" is one of rap's most difficult albums, not because of the album it is but expressly because of the album it isn't. There are three stages of grief with "It Was Written": first, despondence that rap's greatest debutante took an undeniable step backward; second, genuine appreciation for the good album it is; and third, reconciliation via a widely varying middle ground...
- rapreviews.com
2012-12-18
★★★★★
Hip-hop legend Nas further cements his legacy in the music industry with the release of his new album, Life is Good, featuring singles The Don, Daughters, and Accidental Murderers. Guest features on the release include the late Amy Winehouse, Anthony Hamilton, Large Professor, Mary J. Blige, Miguel, Rick Ross and more. ...Read the full album review In a way, it's a compliment to say that a rapper's fallen off...
- www.djbooth.net
2012-10-15