NAS: Hip-Hop Is Dead

‘Tis the week before New Year’s, which means new music isn’t really coming out. There’s one hip-hop album that’s worth your time, though: Hip-Hop Is Dead by Nas. One of the undisputed kings of hip-hop lyricism, Nas hits us with all-new rhymes with a different perspective. He’s still Nas, though — so he’s attacking the mic and spinning stories like no one else. “Black Republican,” the big Nas/Jay-Z collaboration, caused a lot of buzz but it’s far from the highlight on this album. Two tracks are produced by Kanye West, and he also guest-raps on “Still Dreaming.” Game drops a rhyme on “Hustlers,” and will.i.am produces a few tracks here too. They all do OK jobs, but frankly the album didn’t need them. Just having a whole album of Nas spitting his intricate, insightful rhymes would’ve been good enough — it might’ve even made this the next Illmatic. Still, it’s a good album and marks the return of an MC with a rep that most rappers dream of having.

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