Not a single word, or even sentence, can truly embody the significance of Nas’ Illmatic purely because it means so much, to so many people, on so many levels. It is an album—of both great historical and cultural importance—that screams New York City and more specifically Queens and the Queensbridge projects, a public housing project concentrated with poverty and crime. Illmatic put Queensbridge on the map and brought to light the issues looming the area for years. One of the most impressive and even immaculate aspects of Illmatic is that it is Nas’ first record; it is his first offering as an artist, and serves as his first portrayal and declaration of self and artistry. This album’s role in Nas’ career and life makes its intentions and purposes all the more interesting. Finally, on a personal level, Illmatic is an album that helped shape me as a music fan and person altogether. I first came across this classic record at the beginning of my initial adventures in the discovery of music, and specifically hip hop. I was a 12-year-old kid and I was infatuated with the works of contemporaries like Eminem, Jay-Z and Kanye West, and naturally while digging deeper, I found one of their greatest inspirations—Nas. After my first few listens of Illmatic, I was convinced of the record’s conciseness and importance to the genre and culture. With all of these ideas and realms of significance of Illmatic in mind, one may begin to understand the greatness and importance of the album as one of the greatest hip hop, New York City, and just flat out outstanding albums of all time.
Nasir Jones was 21 years young when he recorded his debut album Illmatic in 1994. The record truly came from Nas’ experiences living in the Queensbridge housing projects in the early 1990s. It was a rough public housing project in an inner-city filled with crime, drug abuse and a lack of hope to break the cycle of violence and inescapable poverty.
So as more and more blacks moved into public housing in Queensbridge and more and more crack was being distributed throughout the area, it was more and more likely for blacks to wind up addicted to crack, and/or dead or in jail as a result. Once parents fell victim to these hardships, it created an environment for their children and their children’s children to do the same. On Illmatic this cyclical lifestyle takes the form of stories about Nas’ kinfolk from the neighborhood including “the mentions of his friend Willie “Ill Will” Graham’s senseless murder, wars with police and references to legendary gangsters like Alberto “Alpo” Martinez, Lorenzo “Fat Cat” Nichols and the Supreme Team.” These stories are told through anecdotal references on tracks like “Represent” or in the form of letters to imprisoned friends like on “One Love.”
Though Queens is currently undergoing serious gentrification in neighborhoods like Astoria—which demands rent in the ballpark of Manhattan and other expensive areas— Queensbridge is still very much the ghetto it was in the early ‘90s. While listening to the record, one could imagine a youthful Nas looking out the window of public housing, into the streets he called “the fucking dungeons of rap,” perhaps witnessing a robbery or an arrest. With this perspective and desire for an improved, morally sound life, Nas wrote poetry and raps, and began to take music seriously.
Nas aimed for Illmatic to be not just a debut record, but a record with lasting inspirational power. In 1994, he told The Source magazine, “This feels like a big project, that’s gonna affect the world.” Many, if not all of the ideas and beliefs related to gangs, crime, and the inner-city expressed throughout Illmatic ring true today. That is truly why the record is so special and important. Though not a single song or record can change a place or group of people, it can certainly aspire to do so. An album like Illmatic can inspire both the residents of a rough neighborhood like Queensbridge to try and break the cycle of poverty and crime, and expose the issues of a particular neighborhood to those who do not live with those issues everyday.
Since Illmatic is such a culturally reflective and important record—and was such a well received one at its time of release, and still today—it has served as the greatest curse to Nas’ long musical career. It is a debut album that set up decades of shortcomings for the MC. For example, it is near impossible to come across interviews in which Nas is not asked about Illmatic, it’s influence on hip hop, his career and how he feels that his best work came so early in his career. One particularly interesting answer from Nas on the subject came during his press run for his 2006 album Hip Hop is Dead. Pitchfork asked Nas if he wished Illmatic was not as great of a record as it was so people would stop comparing it to his subsequent works. He responded, “I could never wanna wish that…I want each album to say something different and be accepted better than the last one but I don’t have any point to outdo any particular album of mine.” Imagine how it feels for Nas to have achieved something so incredible and special with his first album, to only continue missing and disappointing people for many of the next 22 years of his career.
Despite the onslaught of antics and mediocre music he has made over the years—including ironically titling one of his albums “Hip Hop Is Dead” at a time in which Nas’ relevance and influence was fairly questionable in hip hop, and titling another album “Nigger” solely for shock value, only to make it an untitled album before release—hip hop fans and the culture as a whole still embraces and loves Nas, mostly for his very first record, which released 22 years ago. On one hand, all of the disappointments and failings of Nas’ career since 1994 make Illmatic all the more special because he will never be able to make an album as good as it again. He will never again be able to capture the same energy (dare I say vibe?) of Queens and New York City at the time. And at the same time, DJ Premier, Q Tip and other contributing producers will sound dated trying to recreate the sounds they crafted with Illmatic. So when he raps, “I dropped an ancient manifest of hip-hop straight off the block,” Nas is not lying. It is a self-predicted and fulfilled prophecy; he dropped a piece of rap mythology on his first try, and it was for the better of the music. Illmatic represents what many music enthusiasts refer to as “the golden age of hip hop,” having conventional, but excellent production and strong complementing lyrics.
For me, personally, Illmatic is still an album to revisit on a monthly basis for inspiration and to return to purer, lyrical hip hop in the onslaught of noise and laziness in modern hip hop. This record proved to me there was more to rap than catchy hooks, pretty electronic beats and braggadocios lyrics—sorry Kanye, I still love you! I digress. Illmatic is an album with infectious and head nod-able beats that are some of my favorites ever. But on top of that, there are genuine, real, important lyrics that can change one’s perspective. In a way, hearing Nas say he is “straight out the fucking dungeons of rap” brings you to that place.
CLICK HERE FOR NAS’ VERY OWN ANNOTATION ON “N.Y. State of Mind”!
Though New Yorkers from the 80s and 90s will relate to Illmatic’s commentary on the state of the city during Crack Era, it is not just an album for that era or even for people living in the Queensbridge projects or similar circumstances. It is for all people, and particularly those looking to be uplifted. Refrains from “The World Is Yours” telling me that the world is mine makes me feel like it actually is, or could be. Similarly, I am a self-diagnosed insomniac, so the bar “I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death,” is pretty relatable. “Represent” is a testament to how truly terrible Nas’ upbringing was, given the constant violence he was surrounded by against his will, and provides some perspective to me of how much better my childhood was and how much smaller my issues are comparatively. Unknowingly, Nas brought white Jewish Long Islanders to Queensbridge for a walking tour, to show the inner workings and struggles of the neighborhood. This greater understanding is just the start of a conversation about differences in race and class that divides people within New York City and the entire country in general.
As stated earlier, it is not expected for a piece of art or music to change a group of people, a place or society as a whole. However, in this case, Illmatic makes an attempt to at least recognize what is wrong and needs to be changed in certain areas and facets of society. Because of this and the excellent level of artistry—both on a musical level from the numerous talented (and now legendary) producers and on a lyrical level from Nas—Illmatic is an album that has transcended New York City. It is an album that has also transcended the 90s, and more importantly, hip hop as a genre, which usually comes with negative connotations to certain groups of people. It is an album that speaks to and for an incredibly marginalized and suffering race of people, and calls out to those who are unaware of this to be aware. Historically, culturally, musically and personally, Illmatic is one of the greatest works of music of all time, and there is hardly an argument against this.
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