Tochi Osuji
[URL='https://www.facebook.com/notes/tochi-osuji/my-first-time-hearing-illmatic-and-other-reflections/10152489983349734']19 April 2014 ·
My first time hearing Illmatic and other reflections
Music lovers have that song/album that means a ton to them. Illmatic, among other albums, means a lot to me. Illmatic sits on top though. Hearing that album for the first time changed how I listen to hip hop, period.
It's 2003. Summertime. I'm transitioning from 1st to 2nd year university. I'd been a hip hop fan since 1998. I heard It Was Written b...ack in 1998. And I remember thinking: "wow, this Nas guy can write his ass off. (And this was back then when CDs came with rhyme booklets) The songs on here are mostly slow and boring, but does all rap look this well on the page when written down?" I loved "The Message" (A thug changes, and love changes...hit me hard back then). Then I heard "Nas Is Like" a year later and was transported to another planet. I must have heard that song a thousand times back in 1999. At that moment, I was forever a DJ Premier fan. So I looked for anything Nas/DJ Premier. Heard "NY State of Mind" and really liked it.
Fast forward back to 2003. My boy Gafar's telling me about hip hop albums I should hear. He mentions Illmatic.
The joke is, I'd never even heard of Illmatic. I thought It Was Written was Nas's first album, lol. Gafar says, "you'll like it. It's really street. Just real."
So I take the CD and give it a listen. And this is what I remember
1. Intro - "meh. This is boring. Subways, dudes talking about random stuff (I didn't know anything about Wild Style at the time, forgive me). Skip."
2. NY State of Mind - "ohh! I've heard this song before! What a great tune! So it's off this album? Hmm... the scratching at the end is amazing! Na-na-na-nasty nas!!"
3. Life's A bytch - "This is too slow and kinda boring. Nice line about the lotto though."
4. World is Yours - "Hmm... I like this. Kinda chill, not too boring. Did Premier do this? (I was thrown off by the scratching, a Premier trademark. Turns out Pete Rock did it).
5. Halftime - "oh this is my shyt! [Note: Halftime is the first time I'm actually feeling a song on here, for real]. The beat's killer. Catchy. Upbeat. [Then the Malcolm X line comes in] whoaa! shyt! "More kicks than a baby's stomach". whoaaa. Let's start this track again. [I heard Halftime 3 times before deciding to move on].
6. Memory Lane - "ugh. This beat sucks! What's with the church-like voices? This shyt is way too slow. SKIP [that's right - I didn't even give the song a chance]"
7. One Love - "meh. Beat's weird and too low key. What the fukk is he rhyming on? SKIP"
8. One Time 4 Your Mind - "I'm kinda feeling this. Beat's slow and a little boring but Nas is really killing it. Some of the best lines on this CD so far are here. "Shot my way out my mom dukes", "what up nikkas, it's Nasty the villain!" "I hold a Mac-11, and attack a reverend, I contact eleven Ls and MAX IN HEAVEN" (That was, and still is, MY shyt!)
9. Represent - "ugh. this is boring. It's just some guys shouting Represent over and over again. SKIP"
10. It Aint Hard To Tell - "Holy shyt...."
It Aint Hard To Tell hit me like a ton of rocks. Right away it threw me back to my childhood days. Hearing the SWV "Right Here" song my mom used to love playing over and over again. And I hadn't heard that song in a decade, but I always loved it as a kid. Something about that MJ melody is just timeless. It reminded me of everything I loved about being a little kid in Saudi. Playing in haunted houses with my friends, playing tag in the dark, etc.
When the song ended and the CD popped out, I popped it back in. And this time, I relaxed and paid attention.
Let's just say that It Aint Hard To Tell changed my perspective on hip hop, period. And this is coming from a guy who had been listening to hip hop seriously since 1998.
Before hearing Illmatic, the album I was absolutely in love with was "Get Rich and Die Tryin" (still a great album). Looking back, I realize that getting into hip hop in '98 was good but hip hop was becoming quite poppy. I was right there as a listener when Neptunes & Timbaland started taking off and dominating the shyt out of everything. And radio started moving toward one kind of sound. The point is, I wasn't looking for nuance in records. Just whatever was catchy. I was collecting the hottest singles at the time. Whatever was mainstream in rap, I liked. I still heard Gang Starr, Mos Def/Rawkus stuff like that but only their singles because they made radio (and I loved the singles I heard). I never bothered to look into the albums because I wasn't really looking for anything deeper.
I wasn't an album listener. It was "what's hot? What's simple and catchy? what can I easily dance to?"
Illmatic (and Samurai Champloo as well, but that's another story) made me pay attention to ATMOSPHERE in hip hop. Nuance. Meaning. Photographic memory. Melodies that evoke something deeper and more passionate. There's a certain attention to atmosphere that older rap has that doesn't exist at all in modern mainstream rap. And it makes it really hard for seasoned fans to listen to. New beats don't evoke a vibe or a meaning or something that gets really deep into you. Nobody's really trying to capture an environment/feeling in musical form, unless it's the club (which is boring).
The production on Illmatic is perfect. Every single beat on there will never get old. They're all beautiful in their own way. Strangely enough, Nas was going through all this shyt when he recorded Illmatic. And Illmatic has to be one of the most peaceful hip hop albums I've ever heard. Maybe people with immense struggles who are actively trying to deal with them are always looking for some sort of peace. I wonder...
Illmatic made me go back and catch up on all the great hip hop I had missed.
On lonely nights in Montreal, "The World is Yours" held me down like a muhfukka! And one day, I happened to give Memory Lane another chance and had a similar "It Aint Hard To Tell" experience.
I love every one of those songs. I've probably bought the album 4 or 5 times. "Lost" it two times. "Borrowed" from me and never returned.
It's just one of those albums.
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