If Illmatic isn't the best rap album ever made, it's certainly the most refined. At just 10 songs, and with a run time of just under 40 minutes, Nas' 1994 Columbia Records debut is the Holy Grail of the East Coast hip-hop ideal—a tight, dense and chiseled rap album made for rap fans (not the radio) and loaded with wordplay, sharply-observed around the way tales and enough street knowledge to make heads nod, old and new. It's an album rooted in place (Queensbridge) and sound (a particular breed of boom bap pursued and perfected in the studios of Chung King and D&D), and—as one of few debut albums to ever secure The Source Magazine's coveted five mic rating—legend.
Few albums have left such an indelible mark on any genre as Illmatic, which is why, 20 years later, it's still held up as the high watermark for pure rap album expression (and why Kendrick Lamar found his stunning good kid, m.A.A.d city staring down Illmatic comparisons in 2012). To commemorate the album's 20th anniversary (April 19, officially), Nas has already performed the album in its entirety backed by the National Symphony Orchestra, and on Wednesday, April 16, Hennessy V.S & Tribeca Film Festival will open with the premiere of the feature-length documentary Time is Illmatic. To do our part to celebrate this masterpiece of American music, we asked 10 writers to contribute 10 short stories inspired by Illmatic's 10 song titles. Spark one, lean back and enjoy.
FICTION—10 Short Stories Inspired by Nas’ ‘Illmatic’ | Myspace
