Nas "Illmatic" (1994)
Son of a jazz musician, Nas started playing trumpet and writing rhymes.
His father Olu Dara actually features on this album playing trumpet.
Nas met producer/rapper the Large Professor and through him recorded
some material in studio downtime between other artists' sessions. None
of these recordings, however, were released at the time. Nas then secured a
recording contract with Columbia records and released his first single, a
track on the soundtrack to the Oliver Stone-produced film "Zebrahead".
By the time they came to work on Nas' debut "Illmatic", he had created
enough buzz to attract a few producers wanting to work with him.
Producers for Illmatic included Large Professor, Q-Tip and DJ Premier.
The music is a good mix of jazz elements and more stripped down hip hop
beats.
Nas reports on ghetto life, but with grim reality rather than
glamourising it. The album was awarded a rare '5 mics' rating by
American hip hop magazine 'The Source', a rating considered so high
and so rare that the magazine had to make a point of defending it publicly.
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