Love this! I was a Latch Key Gourmet as well!!! You can’t fade my ramen noodles and chicken casserole!

Word, I had thought Nas was done for sampling “Human Nature” for his debut. Remember thinking “how’d he clear that?” but it was dope.

So, Illmatic …

So we took a class trip to Harlem. My teacher, the only young Black teacher at our school, decides to show us the ways of negotiating with one of the bootleggers on 125th st. My friend and I end up getting bottlegg Illmatic and 36 Chambers. We rocked 36 Chambers so much that Illmatic got pushed to the side of a little while. I knew Illmatic was better even at the time, but Wu just hit you with so much more personality, energy, and humor that it was more attractive to a teanager like myself.

Crecks must be in by mind, cause i agree with One Time For Ya Mind as least favorite and Represent as personal favorite. Represent has a couple of things I love about songs from the era: choruses that are just a group of dudes shouting shit, a stripped down beat with a standard sample for head nodding, and a relatively fast tempo. You mentioned that you like One time cause it’s more of a cipher beat, which is true and I definitely used to freestyle to it, but I’m more partial to beats that are little too fast to freestyle to, but perfect for a written song. That’s what represent is to be.

Y’all didn’t seem to show as much love to the world Is Yours. That’s the one song on the album that is commercial viable, which is amazing coming from a essentially a street album with little promotion. It’s the kind of song I can play for my mom and she can appreciate it. I think it laid the mark for later songs like If I Ruled the World, One Mic, and I Can. It’s Nas showing that he can make songs that non-hip hop heads can relate to.

And that is why I agree that AZ’s catalog is stronger than Nas’s. AZ has mastered the ability to stay lyrical over smoother beats that anybody can enjoy. Specifically, his comeback album Aziatic in 2002 is better than every Nas album that doesn’t end in “matic”. It’s the kind of album that i think Nas WANTS to do, for every hit like I Can there are incredible misses like You Owe Me, Big Girls, Getting Married, etc. Aside from Illmatic and Stillmatic, his albums have not been representative of the amazing artist that he is. Now if you piece together the hottest songs into a compilation then I’d put that up against anyone (essentially why Lost Tapes is so classic), but unfortunately I judge people by albums.