100 Best Albums
- APR 19, 1994
- 10 Songs
- It Was Written · 1996
- Illmatic · 1994
- Illmatic · 1994
- Stillmatic · 2001
- Late Registration · 2005
- Stillmatic · 2001
- Illmatic · 1994
- God's Son · 2002
- Chilombo · 2020
- I Am... · 1999
Essential Albums
- While Nas’ 1994 classic Illmatic is often hailed as the golden standard for hip-hop debuts, there’s a dedicated sect of his fanbase that prefers his chart-topping follow-up, It Was Written. Nas’ early work had established him as a prodigious street poet with uncanny observational gifts. But Nas was after more than critical acclaim; he wanted superstardom, plaques, and respect. And on It Was Written, released in 1996, he makes a good case for why he’s worthy of them all: “There’s one life, one love, so there can only be one king,” he raps on “The Message.” This is the album in which the rapper adopted the persona of “Nas Escobar”—a mafioso alter ego inspired by drug lords, as well as rap contemporaries like Notorious B.I.G. and the Wu-Tang Clan’s Raekwon. The imaginative approach took his career to new artistic and commercial heights. It Was Written is a gangsta flick over speakers, with Nas serving as both Coppola and Brando—he sets the scene as director, and takes on the star role. “The Message” has him scoping enemies and bedding baddies in a Mercedes-Benz wagon; “Watch Dem N****s” questions his crew with suspicions of betrayal; and “Shootouts” narrates a plot to take out a trigger-happy police officer. The storytelling on It Was Written is stark, cinematic, and full of details: No-name extras are rendered as vividly as the album’s main characters, down to their clothes, hair, and facial expressions. Musically, Nas’ flow becomes more spacious, eschewing his multi-syllabic delivery for one that’s light and effortless. And to soundtrack his new approach, he enlisted the Trackmasters, the production team that had already made crossover hits like Notorious B.I.G.’s “Juicy” and Mary J. Blige’s “Be Happy.” The duo supplied Nas with silky smooth beats that veered left of the boom-bap foundation he had laid on Illmatic, helping Nas find the largest audience he’d ever seen. But Nas’ street tales didn’t mean he abandoned substance. He imaginatively personifies himself as a gun on “I Gave You Power,” portraying resentment and helplessness toward the hordes who endlessly use him to destroy communities. “Black Girl Lost,” meanwhile, speaks of a young woman who struggles with self-love as a result of heartbreak and objectification. And “If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)” imagines a hood-utopia, one free of cops, poverty, and fear. Nas didn’t duplicate the vibes of his debut, but he had bigger dreams to pursue—and It Was Written was his first step toward reaching them.
- 2023
- 2023
- 2022
Artist Playlists
- His place on hip-hop's Mount Rushmore has long been secured.
- Cutting rhymes and innovative experiments from the New York MC.
- Representing the legacy of a certified five mic debut.
- The rap gods and jazz cats behind his mic skills.
- Listen to the hits performed on their blockbuster tour.
- The saga continues! Hear the songs these New York legends are playing on the road.
Compilations
- John Legend & Florian Picasso
- Mary J. Blige
More To Hear
- They called him the Second Coming for a reason.
- We connect the dots in Queens, from Nas to Nicki Minaj.
- Nas’ old music aged like fine wine, but his new music is just as fresh.
- The artists talk about 'Judas and the Black Messiah.'
- Plus, tracks by Popcaan, Drake, and more.
- On love, loss, and the Bad Boy Reunion.
About Nas
A genre’s quintessential recording is forged from the eternal quest for artistic perfection: Nas established hip-hop’s apogee with his first album, Illmatic. Born Nasir Jones in New York City in 1973, the son of jazz musician Olu Dara redefined hip-hop in 1994 with his debut, flipping tales of structural poverty into intricate hood scripture and fomenting the boom bap style. His follow-up, 1996’s baroque and brooding It Was Written, reinvigorated mafioso rap and built Nas’ standing as music’s foremost chronicler of crime, a distinction he vividly defended with Stillmatic in 2001. On that album, Nas realized new modes of narrative (in “Rewind”) and spectacle (with the eruptive “One Mic”), distilling his ability to document street life like few others in rap. Evolving from Queensbridge project laureate to sage social documentarian, Nas certified a parabolic legacy throughout the 2000s, charging his allegorical, compound rhymes with public commentary. Energized by his stirring blue-sky alliance with reggae scion Damien Marley, 2010’s Distant Relatives, Nas returned with the cultured Life Is Good in 2012, leading the golden age into the present with midlife verity, a winning composite he continued with the 2020 album King’s Disease. Reflecting on three decades of influence so far, Nas told Apple Music, “I’ve been blessed enough to see a gift in myself, polish it, present it to the world, and light comes to it.”
- FROM
- Brooklyn, NY, United States of America
- BORN
- September 14, 1973
- GENRE
- Hip-Hop/Rap