Reconsidering Nas’ Career

I’ve never known a rapper I’ve been more conflicted with in terms of his greatness than Queensbridge’s own Nas. On one hand, he released one of the best debuts ever and, for some, the greatest rap album ever. On the other, he is an extremely flawed artist, his music growing worse the more he grew. As we moved further away from his debut, we began to see less Nasty Nas and more nasty Nas music. Viewing it under the pure guise of rapping, there are few others that do it better than Nas. At his best, he’s a storytelling whiz and a lyrical Moses, splitting the Red Sea with the microphone he calls his staff. At his best, his words were able to cocoon the listener in the visions he was looking to portray. At his worst, he represented everything I hate in hip-hop; speaking empty nothings or semi-decent lines in the booth over lukewarm, unseasoned beats did nothing for anyone, no matter how impressive he was in a technical sense. His albums grew to become a chore for me to listen to. Even with all of this in mind, he seems like an artist who should be one of the greatest. So what is the problem with Nas?

I began to think perhaps it was age. In a sense, I could see the problems with not connecting with a 90's legend as someone who was barely born in it. It could be a situation of having to be there in order to experience the magnitude of what made something monumental in scope and/or quality. I’ve always…