Album: Nas – Untitled

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Let me start this by first saying how much I love(d) Nas. I have every single one of his albums; he was always ranked higher than Jay-Z on my lists; I even bought Hip Hop Is Dead and I have some Nas lyrics tattooed on my leg. He’s fallen off a couple of times, but I’m still holding on with ya hoping that one day you’ll finally make me proud to bump you once more. That being said, not only is this not the album, it’s terrible to boot.

When that first single Hero dropped, I was like “dog-diggity damn, Nas is back!”, with them crazy synths and chesty kicks, God’s Son was back, more modern, fresh and with just enough of cockiness to show the rest who’s who. I was having second thoughts of how this album was going to be, with a very “eh” “Hip Hop Is Dead” only slightly passing the aiight-o-meter, with help thanks to a killer track with Jay-Z.

I put it through the joint-cipher test (well, me and some buddies smoked joints while listening to the CD, all very scientific you see), and we struggled to listen to the whole album in full. He’s trying to be a revolutionary, a saviour and an ill MC and he’s falling short of all that and some on this effort.

Dear Nas, from one of your big fans, get off that preaching ish, pretty please. Stop taking tablets out of KRS-One’s medicine cabinet and please stop all this political and pro-black stuff. Yes, all these things are relevant and I agree with some of the things you say, but if I want to hear a rap song about conserving the environment (see We’re Not Alone) I’ll make sure to shoot myself in the head before I get a chance to.

Maybe I’m the grumpy backpacker who wants to stay in the Illmatic era, but damn there’s a thin line between educating and preaching. You’ve walked on that tight rope for a while now, but this time a nice amount of hot-air blew you right off. Some tracks are still pretty sick like Sly Fox, but damn, I’m really struggling to give you a bad review.

And you also used an idea RZA already had in his (also average) new album Digi Snacks (see You Can’t Stop Us Now), but yours pales in comparison to Bobby’s I’m sorry to inform you.

Now I’m going to listen to N.Y. State Of Mind and forget this ever happened, I know I’ve blocked a lot of your albums from my memory, but I still deep down hope that you can win me back with another album. Until then, Mr. Jigga will sit above you in my all-time top five now. I’m sorry, but that ugly swagger jacker’s still got it and plus, Beyoncé is way finer than Kelis. And he dissed Oasis too, now that’s ill.

Available through Def Jam Records