Album: Nas – Greatest Hits

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Despite some creative rough patches and the tired argument about him never being able to top his magnum opus Illmatic, you would be hard-pressed to find a Hip Hop artist more celebrated than the man born Nasir Jones. Now with his 13 year relationship with Columbia Records coming to an end, it's time for the requisite Greatest Hits album.

The addition of two new tracks will no doubt attract the attention of Nas enthusiasts. Whether it’s worth plunking down your cash for these two tracks if you already have the rest of his back catalogue is debatable. Regardless, Nas is in top form on the Cee-Lo featuring Less Than An Hour, with its secret agent James Bond flavour. He gets all reflective on us over a smooth jazz backdrop on Surviving The Times. Known for bouts of nostalgia, he details how his career began growing up in Queensbridge, from meeting the likes of Tragedy and Eric B to his recorded jump-off with Main Source in 1991 all the way to where he is now.

You can’t go wrong with any of the tracks from Illmatic, with One Love, It Ain’t Hard To Tell and NY State of Mind included here. While there are other tracks from his well-documented debut that could have been featured it may have gone into over-indulgent and repetitive territory.

The tracks are in mostly chronological order, as it moves on to 1996’s overlooked yet also classic It Was Written. The inclusion of the Lauryn Hill-assisted If I Ruled The World makes sense, however the proceedings get a little questionable after that.

Including the less heard remix of Street Dreams featuring R Kelly, over the superior original, is an odd choice. While not the greatest track Hate Me Now was valid enough, considering the controversy it created at the time of its release. The 1999 album I Am was a letdown but there was some quality material that should have been included here (Nas Is Like, Undying Love, NY State of Mind Pt. II).

It is understandable why there isn’t a trace of the disastrous Nastardamus album, there are a couple of banging tracks from it that could have made the cut here though. There is also more material to be mined from Stillmatic, yet they have only included the three most obvious choices.

The fact that none of the tracks from the celebrated Lost Tapes collection are not present will raise some eyebrows. Instead they have opted to include the quite dreadful Oochie Wally, which didn’t even appear on a Nas LP, it actually appeared on the 2000 compilation QB Finest, the excellent Find Ya Wealth would have been a wiser choice. The fact that not much care went into this collection is obvious when two of his biggest hits Made You Look and I Can, from God’s Son, are not included.

The bloated two-disc album Street Disciple certainly had its flaws but there was still some worthy material to include, however they have chosen only to include Bridging The Gap, featuring his legendary Jazz playing father Olu Dara. With that said, the Greatest Hits comes to a close.

Although you can understand why no selections were made from his latest, Hip Hop Is Dead, considering it is still quite recent, it would have rounded off the disc more appropriately (perhaps the track Can’t Forget About You).

Indeed Nas was overdue for a career retrospective and some of his greatest output is available on this disc. However, it is a disservice to his fans and the man himself when seemingly little care or regard was used when selecting the tracks, more the work of careless label execs than Nas himself. In this writer’s opinion, you’re better off picking up his essential albums, if you haven’t done so already, rather than bothering with this flawed and under whelming collection.

Available Through Columbia Records