Nas's Illmatic (6 page)

Death is a constant presence in Nas’s work, from his first verse to his recent Notonous statement/album title/marketing ploy
Hip Hop is Dead
. The multiple threads weave the passing of actual people in with ideas, movements, and even music. He seems to fulfill the meaning of his name by taking up the cause of protecting the latter, viewing himself as willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for hip hop when no one else wants to—or even can. On his recent remixes of “Where Are They Now,” Nas revives hip hop stars from the 80s and 90s like Jesus brought back Lazarus, hoping to save hip hop’s history to strengthen its future.

Elsewhere, Nas is more literally focused on death, particularly murder. On
It Was Written
, his follow-up to
Illmatic
, he personifies a gun on the emotional and brilliant “I Gave You Power.” In the climax of the song, he jams on his owner in a courageous moment of rebellion against the purpose that has been forced upon him, the purpose to take life (“My creation
was for Blacks to kill Blacks,” he says). But the gun is quickly picked up by someone else, certain to be used in subsequent killings. The song shivers from mournful piano chords and weeping strings, stuck in a cycle of violence and death that seems inescapable. It’s a quiet moment of anger and compassion, producing an unspoken connection between one death—Will, the protagonist’s owner, or any black man—and the survival of not only those around them, but the ideas that sent them to their graves.

Nas would eventually name his record label after Ill Will, and he has never stopped talking about him. For the cynical outside viewer, this is no different than name-checking his Queensbridge upbringing, a street-cred ploy, the badge he carries with him to get a free pass when younger, hungry emcees come after Nas (a self-confessed homebody) and his commitment to the rugged lifestyle. But listening to him talk about his experience outside of the jaded mindset would quiet even the most antagonistic critic. Nas, an infinitely talented emcee with little need for a mythology, gained very little in May, 1992. But he did, just before his career broke wide open, lose a friend.

The universe does have a way of balancing out. A few months later, for however short a period of time, Nas would gain a vital friend in MC Serch. “I didn’t actually track him down,” Serch recalls. “I was in the studio working on my solo album
[Return of the Product]
, and Stretch Armstrong and Reef, who were A&R at Atlantic at the time, brought a bunch of emcees. I was with Red Hot Lover Tone
⁵
and Chubb Rock in the studio, and Reef and Stretch brought Nas, Akinyele, and Percee P to spit on ‘Back to the Grill Again.’ The end result
was a posse cut similar to Nas’s wax-debut “Live at the BBQ.” His presence is noticeably different though. Unlike the earlier cut, where Nas had seemed anxious but confident, this less-remembered Nas persona is gruff and forceful. Though his voice is still instantly recognizable, the 17–year-old is playing with his voice, trying to stand on his toes to measure up to the adults in the room. The result is a deeper, gravelly snarl of a delivery, uncomfortably matched with Nas’s usual flow. It’s a rare opportunity to see a future great experimenting with approaches, but it would be more satisfying if he hadn’t already nailed his persona in his first and only previous attempt.

There are still huge connections between Nas’s first two posse-style appearances. The emcee remains focused on shock, claiming he’s “waving automatic guns at nuns.” He keeps a Tec-9 in his dresser and he’s a “serial killer that works by the phone book.” Just months after his friend was killed, Nas puts forth violent tales of murder and death. Yet unlike hyper-violent, shock-heavy records like the above-mentioned
Efil4-Zaggin
, or the more realistic assaults of
Ready to Die
, these dark fantasies are purposefully so over the top as to be totally divorced from reality. It may still carry a certain flippancy about death, but considering Nas was still a teenager, these are very typical subjects and styles.

It’s a quick 12-bar verse, half the length of his last appearance, but with the exception of a few witty lines from Serch himself, Nas steals the song. At the recording, the young rapper reached out to more experienced Serch. Highly impressed with Nas’s flow, Serch was happy to listen. “Nas ended up staying behind…and then sat down with me and said ‘Atlantic is offering me a deal, I don’t really feel comfortable about the deal, I need your help,’” says Serch. “and I said Well, it would be an honor to help you.’ So I signed Nas over to Serchlite as an artist, and went to Columbia and went to see
Faith Newman. I said I got Nas as an artist and we’re looking for a deal. And she didn’t let me leave the building until we had a deal in place.”

Though Newman did, in fact, jump at the chance to sign Nas (whom she had already been looking to sign, once she tracked him down), the path did meet an early, infamous bump in the road. Def Jam’s Russell Simmons got the first look, but passed. “Russell’s famous line to me was ‘Mas sounds like [Kool] G Rap and G Rap don’t sell no records, so why would I sign a rapper that doesn’t sell no records?’ So I was like, well, I did the loyalty thing, I took it to my guy first and he passed. And I went on and went about my way.”

While Nas readied early tracks for his eventual debut, Serch continued to provide Nas with opportunities. After his own record was completed, Serch was given the task of compiling artists for the soundtrack to an urban interracial love story called
Zebrahead
. The emcee turned music supervisor had supposedly originally wanted the lead role, a great rumor that Serch himself confirmed is not at all true, but it went instead to a young Michael Rapaport, making his big-screen debut. Though the movie received generally solid reviews, its low budget and unfortunate fate of following Spike Lee’s similarly themed (if almost totally different)
jungle Fever
guaranteed it would be quickly forgotten.

On the soundtrack, Nas would get his first opportunity to present a solo track, surrounded by fellow unknowns and a few moderate-sized names like MC Breed and old-schooler Kool Moe Dee. Produced by Large Professor, “Halftime” was the chance for Nas to stretch out over multiple verses. The results were so good that Serch decided to release it as the lead single from the soundtrack, despite featuring a minimalist chorus that consists of the emcee repeating “It’s halftime” over and over.

As far as the
Illmatic
era is concerned, “Halftime” may be Nas’s most spectacular display of raw talent. Sixty-four bars broken up by two simple choruses, the song weaves together Nas’s strongest abilities: mic boasting, street stories, and snap-quick metaphors. Its title serves as an accurate midway point on Nas’s eventual debut, but it’s also a fitting description of the bridge between the rapper’s early style and what would be presented to the world a year and a half later on
Illmatic
.

Still present is the shock rapper that “went to hell for snuffing Jesus.” Here he’s “putting hits on 5-0/‘Cause when it’s my time to go, I’ll wait for God with the fo-fo.” He’s also got the same sharp wit, claiming “you couldn’t catch me in the streets without a ton of reefer/that’s like Malcolm X catchin’ the jungle fever” and “I’m as ill as a convict who kills for phone time.” His flow is smooth and fast: he’s back to relying on his own cadence, and it suits him perfectly.

But there’s no trace of nervousness here. In fact, this may be the most confident track Nas has ever done, even more brazen than “Hate Me Now.” His status on the mic is his main focus. “I’m an ace when I face the bass.” “When I attack there ain’t an army that can strike back/So I react never calmly on the hype track.” “These are the lyrics of the man, you can’t near it, understand/‘cause in the streets I’m well-known like the numbers man.” ‘“Cause when I blast the herb, that’s my word/I’ll be slayin’ ’em fast, doin’ this, that, and the third.”

And here is the thoughtful Nas, casually tossing off gems of insight into his life and times. “I used to hustle—now all I do is relax and strive.” “I used to watch C.H.I.P.’s, now I load glock clips.” “I won’t plant seeds, don’t need an extra mouth I can’t feed.” At the end, he shouts out his fallen friend: “III Will rest in peace.”

The single would generate enough buzz to get hip hop fans, especially in New York, excited about Nas’s prospects.
Here was a hot new artist that had a major-label record deal, a great producer in Large Professor, and a savvy executive producer in MC Serch. Yet, like so many records delayed and perfected,
Illmatic
wouldn’t be released for another two years.

The lost time between Nas’s signing and his debut was a turbulent time for hip hop. Though
The Chronic
would dominate the year, the East Coast rose from its would-be death bed thanks to two albums from groups. The Wu Tang Clan’s
Enter the Wu: 36 Chambers
created a new mythology and collective format that countless groups have attempted to imitate since, while Black Moon’s
Enta Da Stage
proved that there was still a place for hardcore New York hip hop in the marketplace. DJ Premier made one of his best beats with Jeru the Damaja’s “Come Clean,” while Q-Tip’s group A Tribe Called Quest produced their second straight classic with
Midnight Marauders
. Like Nas, the East Coast would survive to fight another day.

Still only 18, Nas’s path towards signed artist and into having an actual major-label release seems both easy and oversimplified. Like most hip hop musicians, his pre-release schedule was littered with delayed release dates, half-successes, and various street and label politics that are better saved for a gossip column (or, in the case of Nas’s ex-girlfriend and mother of his daughter, Carmen Bryan, a trashy tell-all memoir). Stories of Puffy storming into Columbia’s offices claiming to represent Nas and of the various ups and downs of Serch, who would go on to executive produce
Illmatic
, and his relationship with his client largely fall by the wayside when viewed from the distance that the passing of time has afforded us.
⁶

But one thing that shouldn’t be forgotten in the story is that Nas was still a very young man, struggling with the pressures of growing up, making a full-length record, and becoming a father (Bryan would become pregnant in ’93) all at the same time. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of musicians who have been signed to record deals, only to see their potential drift away before they released a single recording. Nas had overcome the obstacles in his path growing up one wrong turn from self-destruction. His struggle to survive in hip hop was just beginning.

In her review of
Illmatic
, published in the
Village Voice
, Selwyn Seyfu Hinds positioned Nas as the potential savior of New York hip hop. “Artistically, commercially, and socially, crews affirm the value of community and offer a motivational blueprint,” she wrote of the dominant format in contemporary New York rap, “but hip hop has always had a love affair with the soloist.” Preparing her audience for a new era in rap hardly seemed out of the question, as this level of expectation was shared by people throughout the New York hip hop community. Nas was the rapper that would bring New York into the 90s.

One of the most prevalent narrative threads in hip hop is the evolution from what was a music genre created by disc jockeys, the faceless puppeteers guiding the crowd, into a rock-style lead-vocalist system. The music took a back seat to the poetry and (more often) the persona of the man (or, very rarely, woman) with the mic in his hand. It started by turning MCs into the focus, and culminated with the elimination of
groups within the past ten years. In the early to mid 90s, the number of hip hop groups was huge and expanding rapidly, particularly in New York. These days, with the exception of a few collectives and labels around the industry, it’s hard to name any group that’s made any kind of significant impact. Clipse? Three 6 Mafia? Certainly not the Ying Yang Twins (say it ain’t so). Outkast and Wu Tang (who are both suffering from internal conflict) seem like leftovers from another time completely.

This transition was inevitable in the long run, not just because people gravitate towards vocals but because it was vital to ensuring the genre’s success in the mainstream market. This was the power America looks for in its stars: the man at the front of stage, standing alone, leading the musicians, ruling the crowd. In the early nineties, West Coast rappers like Tupac, Ice Cube, and Snoop Doggy Dogg were starting to understand this better than anyone. The transition from neighborhood crew to lone gangster sitting on top of the world had begun.

With the culture of community still very much alive in New York, it would have seemed as if the record Nas released in April, 1994 was his and his alone. With other voices limited to sixteen bars, a repeated chorus, and the occasional sample or offhand comment, the story of
Illmatic
is, in a very real sense, an individual’s journey through his own psyche and his, own personal experience. The album plays into the rap-star narrative just as strongly as it does the poor-kid-made-artist one.

But like everything about the record, this simplified take masks the real story behind
Illmatic
. With the exception of “Life’s a Bitch,” each song on the album is a true collaboration between two people. Those pairings are an indication of the resources Nas drew on within the New York hip
hop community. Pete Rock, who produced “The World Is Yours,” had already established himself as a powerhouse with what many New York underground fans consider the greatest beat of all time, “T.R.O.Y. (They Reminisce Over You),” off his 1992 album
Mecca and the Soul Brother
with emcee/partner C.L. Smooth. Q-Tip, who produced “One Love,” was, as mentioned before, one of the core members of the already legendary A Tribe Called Quest. DJ Premier, who, like Large Professor, contributed three beats to the finished product, was a well-established producer across hip hop, in particular with his own established pairing with emcee Guru as Gang Starr.