How many of the Nas/Hitboy albums you think are classic/will be classics?

[marleyg]

i got a gat + sum ice, boy, im tryna get rich

 

[Cladyclad]

That’s my point Ice Ice Baby is a classic song too.

Nobody Store Run Composure Nas Is Good are some of Nas best ever songs but cause they don’t have enough streams radio and club play, mainstream appeal, they can’t be classic songs?

On the flip side I hope you’d admit on the same token songs like You Owe Me and Oochie Wally are completely classic songs for their impact culturally, based on the same logic.

Neither of those songs are classic lol

And Oochie Wally might be Nas worst verse ever

Hell no

 

[Budda]

Neither of those songs are classic lol

And Oochie Wally might be Nas worst verse ever

Hell no

Oochie Wally is iconic, just look at how many rappers have tried to jump on the beat even in recent years, it’s song which triggers back memories for a whole generation.

Classic rap songs are obviously just as influenced by production as verses hence why a song like nikkas in Paris can be considered a classic song with an average verse from Kanye.

 

[Mike the Executioner]

You letting Jay's revisionist tactics to put RD on Illmatic, Ready to Die level cloud your judgment. Classics were called that when they dropped. No one had to sit on those albums for a year to come to that conclusion. The music was undeniable, it had an impact upon release, and you saw more results from that impact later through influencing other artists.

We can't compare music to film and TV. It takes 40 minutes to listen to Illmatic. It took 6 years for The Wire to complete and streaming wasn't there, you had to watch live, and you had to have HBO. Music doesn't require that amount time or have hurdles.

To bring it back to Nas and Hit Boy you're not seeing any of the telltale signs of a classic. The music isn't resonating like that.

By that definition, you could compare music to film and TV. I'm pretty sure people knew how great The Sopranos was when it aired. You didn't have to wait until streaming blew up to see that it's a classic show. It was getting critical acclaim when it was out and it ended up influencing the direction of television in a huge way. It takes 40 minutes to watch an episode of a drama series. A half hour for a sitcom. Each episode is like a song, each season is like an album. At the same time, movies that weren't popular at the time were aired on TV like nobody's business and they became classics. What hurdles were there for you to know Citizen Kane or A Christmas Story were great movies?

What I'm saying is it's not fair to say that every classic has to immediately come out of the gate connecting with people. It's great when it happens, but it doesn't always happen. There's a reason we have a term called "cult classics." Over time, certain pieces of art are given a second look and it's determined that they're great, or people who grow up with music or TV shows that weren't loved in their time start showing their appreciation for what they loved. That changes the narrative.

I just hope people look at these six albums and recognize that it was a great run, something we may never get from Nas again. As long as the era doesn't get dismissed or trashed, it's all good.

 

[Supa]

By that definition, you could compare music to film and TV. I'm pretty sure people knew how great The Sopranos was when it aired. You didn't have to wait until streaming blew up to see that it's a classic show. It was getting critical acclaim when it was out and it ended up influencing the direction of television in a huge way. It takes 40 minutes to watch an episode of a drama series. A half hour for a sitcom. Each episode is like a song, each season is like an album. At the same time, movies that weren't popular at the time were aired on TV like nobody's business and they became classics. What hurdles were there for you to know Citizen Kane or A Christmas Story were great movies?

What I'm saying is it's not fair to say that every classic has to immediately come out of the gate connecting with people. It's great when it happens, but it doesn't always happen. There's a reason we have a term called "cult classics." Over time, certain pieces of art are given a second look and it's determined that they're great, or people who grow up with music or TV shows that weren't loved in their time start showing their appreciation for what they loved. That changes the narrative.

I just hope people look at these six albums and recognize that it was a great run, something we may never get from Nas again. As long as the era doesn't get dismissed or trashed, it's all good.

An hour long album is a complete work. An hour long episode is not complete. A season is not complete. The full work is only done when the story is fully told. If it's six seasons you gotta watch all of them in totality before you can place the show in history.

Music doesn't require that much and effort to experience it. You might hear it on the radio, at a friend's house, in their car, etc. It's way more accessible so most people who are avid listeners will get to it promptly especially in the 90's. No one was waiting years to listen if they were a party of the culture.

These albums are not being regarded as classics. People act like if that word isn't attached then it means you must think it's trash. An album can be good to great but not be a classic.

People wouldn't have to cherry pick positive tweets and reviews and stay within their echo chamber if all these albums were classics.

 

[Mike Wins]

I've always consider classic based on the quality. We called Cuban Linx a classic in '95-'96. Timelessness speaks to the quality.

And "impact" is questionable as criteria. Anything can have an impact. Hell, damn near every 1-hit wonder made an impact, and every quick fad did, as well.

Keeping it to Nas catalog. Lost Tapes is basically a perfect album. Easily a classic by my definition. But it's his lowest selling solo album from 1994-2012. Because it had minimal promo so it made little impact outside his fanbase.

This why the conversation kind of goofy. To me a classic is an example of excellence, one form or another, that's worth revisiting over and over for years. They come in many forms. I don't care if it sold 100,000 or 10 million. Maybe to others the impact or reaching a wide audience is more important. But I don't need no one on a website or Twitter to validate my opinion, I been listening to this album for 20 years

 

[Mike the Executioner]

An hour long album is a complete work. An hour long episode is not complete. A season is not complete. The full work is only done when the story is fully told. If it's six seasons you gotta watch all of them in totality before you can place the show in history.

Music doesn't require that much and effort to experience it. You might hear it on the radio, at a friend's house, in their car, etc. It's way more accessible so most people who are avid listeners will get to it promptly especially in the 90's. No one was waiting years to listen if they were a party of the culture.

These albums are not being regarded as classics. People act like if that word isn't attached then it means you must think it's trash. An album can be good to great but not be a classic.

People wouldn't have to cherry pick positive tweets and reviews and stay within their echo chamber if all these albums were classics.

Doesn't it depend on the show? The Simpsons has been on the air since 1987, and it already has a classic era. Most people consider it to be the first eight, nine, or ten seasons. It doesn't matter what episodes are coming out now. The show's legacy was solidified years ago. We know where The Simpsons stands in history. People do it all the time with TV shows. A lot of them have already peaked by the time they end, and they already made their mark in pop culture. That's why you hear people say "the earlier seasons were great, but......" It doesn't change how people look at the shows overall.

We both know that non-classic albums don't have to be trash, but people seem to say this run has produced no classic albums or songs like it's an insult, like the music has no value. It's strange. Songs like "Rare" or "The Cure" are still great regardless of how much radio play they get or how much you hear them at parties.

 

[Awesome Wells]

That’s my point Ice Ice Baby is a classic song too.

Nobody Store Run Composure Nas Is Good are some of Nas best ever songs but cause they don’t have enough streams radio and club play, mainstream appeal, they can’t be classic songs?

On the flip side I hope you’d admit on the same token songs like You Owe Me and Oochie Wally are completely classic songs for their impact culturally, based on the same logic.

"Ice Ice Baby" is definitely a classic. So is sh*t like "Wild Thing" by Tone Loc and "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-A-Lot.

I can hate every single one of those joints, but still understand that universally, those songs were unstoppable when they dropped, and they're globally recognized as classic records, by purists and casuals alike. That's what a classic record is. It's not about streams all the time. Most classic records dropped way before streaming was a thing. But they had iconic runs as classic songs or albums. They KILLED sh*t when they dropped. It's an event! We all know what it's like when a classic track or album drops. You can't escape it because everyone is either talking about it or playing it somewhere. Everything else stopped when it dropped because no other sh*t mattered. Slang and phrases became popular because of them. The sound changes, etc. That's what classic is.

We've seen it forever with albums like The College Dropout, Illmatic, The Low End Theory, GRODT, 2001, No Way Out, Doggystyle, The Black Album, Diplomatic Immunity, The Documentary, OB4CL, The Score, Aquemini, Life After Death, The Carter 3, Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, etc. We all know what that feels like to see a classic killing sh*t everywhere. Things change after these albums drop, they shift culture and have impact musically. Not talking sales, or streams. Just the music.

So even if the album isn't monumental, there could be songs on the album that are classic that everyone knows. Nas did "Oochie Wally" and "You Owe Me" back to back at The Garden. Crowd went CRAZY!! Because when those two tracks dropped in NYC, they absolutely KILLED radio back then. They were everywhere. So all of the people in the crowd still rock with them today because they remember how it made them feel back in '99-'00. That's what a classic does. Whether it's a song or whole album.

Point is, this entire run with Hit lacks those moments and songs. Lacks those classics. We love that Nas is still active and recording. Of course! But we can't be lying and pretending like this music is classic just because we like Nas and think some of the music is good.

 

[King Kai]

Took me a min to think this thru but if classic means what it used to mean, then none.

The bar set by Nas himself is too high.

 

[Supa]

Doesn't it depend on the show? The Simpsons has been on the air since 1987, and it already has a classic era. Most people consider it to be the first eight, nine, or ten seasons. It doesn't matter what episodes are coming out now. The show's legacy was solidified years ago. We know where The Simpsons stands in history. People do it all the time with TV shows. A lot of them have already peaked by the time they end, and they already made their mark in pop culture. That's why you hear people say "the earlier seasons were great, but......" It doesn't change how people look at the shows overall.

We both know that non-classic albums don't have to be trash, but people seem to say this run has produced no classic albums or songs like it's an insult, like the music has no value. It's strange. Songs like "Rare" or "The Cure" are still great regardless of how much radio play they get or how much you hear them at parties.

There albums are polarizing. Personally I'm not a big fan of Hit Boy's sound so a lot of the music doesn't connect with me. Even when I really liked something like KD2 I don't really go back to it. Replay value just isn't there for me but I will acknowledge that the albums have been very good save for KD1 and Magic 2.

Another thing is legacy artists just don't have the same level of excitement. There's newer artists that are doing something different or their stories seem fresh. It's hard to stick with an artist for 30+ years and they're not really at their peak.

The other issue is the frequency of the releases. 6 albums in 3 years is a very short time frame. There's time where I felt like the lyrical content was redundant or the beats/mixing wasn't polished.

 

[Budda]

"Ice Ice Baby" is definitely a classic. So is sh*t like "Wild Thing" by Tone Loc and "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-A-Lot.

I can hate every single one of those joints, but still understand that universally, those songs were unstoppable when they dropped, and they're globally recognized as classic records, by purists and casuals alike. That's what a classic record is. It's not about streams all the time. Most classic records dropped way before streaming was a thing. But they had iconic runs as classic songs or albums. They KILLED sh*t when they dropped. It's an event! We all know what's like when a classic track or album drops. You can't escape it because everyone is either talking about it or playing it somewhere. Everything else stopped when it dropped because no other sh*t mattered. Slang and phrases became popular because of them. The sound changes, etc. That's what classic is.

We've seen it forever with albums like The College Dropout, Illmatic, The Low End Theory, GRODT, 2001, No Way Out, Doggystyle, The Black Album, Diplomatic Immunity, The Documentary, OB4CL, The Score, Aquemini, Life After Death, The Carter 3, Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, etc. We all know what that feels like to see a classic killing sh*t everywhere. Things change after these albums drop, they shift culture and have impact musically. Not talking sales, or streams. Just the music.

So even if the album isn't monumental, there could be songs on the album that are classic that everyone knows. Nas did "Oochie Wally" and "You Owe Me" back to back at The Garden. Crowd went CRAZY!! Because when those two tracks dropped in NYC, they absolutely KILLED radio back then. They were everywhere. So all of the people in the crowd still rock with them today because they remember how it made them feel back in '99-'00. That's what a classic does. Whether it's a song or whole album.

Point is, this entire run with Hit lacks those moments and songs. Lacks those classics. We love that Nas is still active and recording. Of course! But we can't be lying and pretending like this music is classic just because we like Nas and think some of the music is good.

I can dig this, I sorta agree but then it opens the pandora box, because if we’re talking moments and classic songs no one in rap has more classics than Drake.

 

[Awesome Wells]

I can dig this, I sorta agree but then it opens the pandora box, because if we’re talking moments and classic songs no one in rap has more classics than Drake.

But that's true.

I was just speaking about this offline. I can't stand Drake now, but he's dropped a lot of sh*t since '09 that's taken over when those albums came out. You can't escape them. So Far Gone was dope. Definitely a classic project with mad classic tracks on it. He's a Pop artist, so I'm not mad at it. But he's one of those people who used to drop songs and albums and they became huge moments. That's what classic work does. Sometimes, even when the sh*t is wack or corny.

 

[kes929]

3. Magic 3, KD3 , Magic 1. KD2 a sleeper option

 

[kes929]

I agree it can be a broad term but all classic albums have some similarities. Whether it's an album that went triple plat or barely sold anything, you should be able to point to specific ways it influenced the genre, wave, artists, the market, whatever. What's the impact of these albums in the short term? I don't see any. You mentioned Griselda who don't sell records and I've never been a big fan of but can anyone deny Flygod had a clear impact on underground rap? I'm always going to rep Roc Marci and Marcberg as being the most important/first album in that wave, but Flygod clearly had impact too.

Don't care if an album is perfect or not. If you can't make a compelling argument on its impact, how it influenced albums that came out afterwards, etc then it's not classic in my eyes. The argument some seem to be making is that these albums showed an older rapper making good albums and being active. Ok. Black Thought was doing that before KD1 came out. I fukk with those Black Thought projects...they aren't classic either. Older rappers release albums every year, that's not a new phenomena.

Well Crooked I said on Twitter one day that he has started to see the influence of Nas and Hit Boy, because he has started to receive beat folders labeled modern day boom bap influences by Nas and Hit Boy. But I guess that doesn’t count? Also all of this has happened in. 3 year span of time which in the grand scheme isn’t a long time.

 

[Bolzmark]

None. The albums are good but nowhere near classic. That word gets thrown around too recklessly.