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| Photo retrieved from http://www.amazon.com/Illmatic-Nas/dp/B0000029GA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398023750&sr=8-1&keywords=illmatic |
"I woke up early on my born day, I'm 20, it's a blessing..."
20 years ago today, Nas released his debut album, Illmatic. Among hip-hop fans, especially fans of New
York hip-hop, the album was considered an instant classic. The Source magazine gave Illmatic its coveted 5 mic rating (check out The Source’s review at
this link http://bit.ly/1jjGjLe). Today, Illmatic
is in my top 10 favorite albums of all-time and depending on my mood, it sits
at the top sometimes. At the time
though, I have to be honest, I didn’t understand the hype around the
album. Back in ’94, I didn’t have access
to mixtapes and the Internet didn’t exist for me, so what I heard from Nas had
been limited to his verse on MC Serch’s Back to the Grill and the first two
singles from Illmatic, Halftime
(which first appeared on the Zebrahead soundtrack) and It Ain’t Hard To
Tell. When I first heard the album, the
beats seemed dark and dense and I wasn’t so quick to deem it an instant
classic. Life’s a Bitch was probably my
favorite track from the album, but it took awhile for the rest of the album to
grow on me. I didn’t fully begin to
appreciate Illmatic until my
sophomore year of college in ’96. I
don’t know what changed, but I listened to it one day and it just clicked. I finally realized why Illmatic received its high praise.
The album clocks in under 45 minutes and is only 10 tracks long, but 9
if you remove the intro. It featured
production from some of the best producers of all-time including Primo, Large
Professor and Pete Rock. The lyrics were
top notch and have stood the test of time and the album was perfectly
sequenced. I’m getting older and all of
my favorite albums are reaching these milestone anniversaries. It actually makes me feel old as hell, but
seeing albums like Illmatic get
celebrated with re-releases and hip-hop sites giving in-depth stories about
these albums lends credence to the fact that these albums are timeless
classics. There’s been plenty of
websites covering the 20th anniversary of Illmatic, so I’ve included some links before for you to check. So in closing, happy 20th birthday
to Illmatic and thanks to Nas for
blessing us with the album.
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