To be honest I disovered nas on the late, like I knew him since if I ruled the world and nas is like, but the first album i heard from him was stillmatic. But since then, I was so passionate with the mc that I studied everything about his albums, how they were recieved and all of that. I know that people hated iww and hate me now, and thought he reached rock bottom with nastradamus.
But like you say he's maybe the antechrist of this shyt. Personnaly I don't believe so. But let's admit I go with that. To me it would be kind of the fall of lucifer story, beautiful angel or golden child as you say who fall out the sky to become the devil. In the way I find this as beautiful as well in a tragic kind of way cause that's a part of history, cause you can't take that part of the holy book. Like Romeo and Juliet or the real little mermaid story, the story ends in a bad way but it still beautiful anyway
That reminds me of a line nas said on "blunt ashes"
"And I wouldn't change a thing, mistakes of the greats
This is what came from their pain
From their hurt we gain, an unfair exchange"
Nas is that kind of genius that lost his way personaly and musically at some point, but to me that helped reinforced his music and made it stronger. Tracks like black zombie, rise and fall or drunk by myself wouldn't have seen the light of the day if Nas was still the perfect herald of his genra. And i'm still conviced that he would have disappeared if he had tried to follow the lane of illmatic with his second album, he would have been az or ac status by now. To make a perfect example, I will take masta ace, the guy dropped quality music so far, never a flaw in his discography but yet none of his album have the grandeur, ambition, depht and mystique that nas' album have, they're good, but kinda flat. Each nas album tells us a story about how the man his an giant with an achilles' heel. That's why Nas albums are ones of the most scrutinezed albums by the fans, you always find a way to improve his albums with the unrealeased joints because it's like he's dropping raw diamonds to play with and we need to polish it
If Mike Tyson would have beated Lennox after his incredible speech, if Federer would have won each of his finals against Nadal at the french open, if Borg would have compete in the australian open and didn't stop his carrer at 26, if McEnroe would have won the french open in 84, if Will Smith had taken the Neo role in Matrix... and on and on
greats are greats because they make mistakes
