Day 0763 - Illmatic

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.

Day 0759 - The Sun Rises in the East

Jeru the Damaja  "The Sun Rises in the East" (1994)

Jeru had worked with Gang Starr, and that group's DJ Premier produced this, Jeru's first solo album.  

The production and beats are probably the most interesting part of this album for me.   It almost seems to lean into trip-hop territory with moody instrumental samples backed with drum-machine loops.

The book talks about how Jeru calls out various other rap artists of the time for various perceived offences, but then I don't generally pay attention to lyrics.   Whatever is pissing off Jeru it goes past me, and musically the album doesn't really stand out for me above and beyond other albums or even other hip hop albums of the time.

Day 0690 - Step into the Arena

Gang Starr "Step into the Arena" (1991) 

Gang Starr had recorded a few demos and released some singles, but then broke up.  One of the MCs, Guru, decided to carry on the group and paired up with DJ Premier to create a new incarnation of Gang Starr.

The duo released their debut "No More Mr Nice Guy" which grazed the rap charts and caught the attention of Spike Lee.  Lee got them to revamp one of their tracks from the album for his film "Mo Better Blues" and the group went on to score a major label deal for their second release "Step Into the Arena" 

It's a nice, stripped down album, mostly beats and sparse tracks with the rhymes on top.   The only thing is, with just one MC there isn't a whole lot of variety of style.  Some of the backing tracks are quite interesting though, ranging from straight-ahead hip hop to moodier sounds almost similar to early Massive Attack.