it was written is nas best album technically speaking in terms of writing lyrics imo

Yoda

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head shots101 said:
Go through the tracks and tell me these commerical sounding records
Click to expand...

Breh you telling me Nas wasnt evolving to a more polished sound during this time?

like, listen to NY State of Mind and then Black Girl Lost. cmon b, he was CLEARLY going for a bigger sound. he didnt go balls in at first, but you can see it with the dre track aswell.
 
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Yoda said:
Breh you telling me Nas wasnt evolving to a more polished sound during this time?

like, listen to NY State of Mind and then Black Girl Lost. cmon b, he was CLEARLY going for a bigger sound. he didnt go balls in at first, but you can see it with the dre track aswell.
Click to expand...

Yep, and it didn't stop there.

Between having Puff on "hate me now", "Firm Biz", "You Owe Me", "Oochy Wally", Nas kept reaching for commercial records and kept p*ssing off his core fans.
 
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There's nothing commercial sounding about It was written besides "if i ruled the world" and maybe "Black girl lost'. It still has the deep gritty sound like the "the set up", "Shootouts" "Live n**** rap" "take it in blood" "the message" i mean sh*t, what else you wanted him to do, get lost in the "Back packer underground" shuffle with the likes of Souls of Mischief, a tribe called quest, Brand Nubians of the world? Nas was too special for that Sh*t. HE NEVER SACRIFICED HIS LYRICAL CONTENT when he did anything commercial during that era. Give him some F*CKIN CREDIT for that!

Now looking back, that album sounds more underground with a few hit records which is the balance he needed anyway to branch out and FINALLY BE AMONG THE LIKES OF THE BIGGIE, PACS, JAY-Z's of the legendary stature that they are. Without this album going double platinum, Nas would've been buried a long time ago along with those 90s artist that never made it past 99. Nas Says YOU'RE WELCOME! :pacspit:


I hardly see any "Pac's all eyez on me was too commercial" threads anywhere, muhf*cka had an albums worth on disc one alone :mjlol:
 
karim

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blankstairz said:
Lyrically he stepped it up from illmatic.

Just listen to I gave you power or Black Girl Lost.

The Trackmasters/Steve Stoute creative direction with the beats/production was a step back from illmatic...overall.

People got spoiled with Illmatic. You had a dream team of producers on that....

Tip, Primo, Pete Rock, Extra P.. :whew:

The Bad Boy/Biggie formula of balancing street/commercial was huge and a lot of people followed suit (no pun?).

Nas went that route with Trackmasters/Steve Stoute. Trackmasters had produced on Ready to Die, and they were going in the direction of looping obvious samples with commercial appeal like Puffy.

The core fans weren't happy about it. They wanted another critically acclaimed album, not a commercial one.

But it worked...IWW went double platinum :ehh:

Nas knew he f*cked up with the core fans though.

That is why he came back with primo produced "Nas is Like" as the first single off "I Am" and video. :mjgrin:
Click to expand...
Trackmasters were the ones who created that sound. Puffy just took that shyt and ran with it.
 
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head shots101 said:
Go through the tracks and tell me these commerical sounding records
Click to expand...
It was commercial at the time, since the mixing was a lot more polished than what you heard on hardcore rap records, the main single had lauryn hill singing the chorus and trsckmasters looped very obvious samples and even pop records.
 
L. Deezy

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karim said:
It was commercial at the time, since the mixing was a lot more polished than what you heard on hardcore rap records, the main single had lauryn hill singing the chorus and trsckmasters looped very obvious samples and even pop records.
Click to expand...


Wu Tang had the same content way before Nas and Big...

Lol @ a Kurtis Blow sample being commercial...
 
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head shots101

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L. Deezy said:
Wu Tang had the same content way before Nas and Big...

Lol @ a Kurtis Blow sample being commercial...
Click to expand...
These nikkaz basically running with narrative that magazines and shyt said back in the 90s...not even going go back and forth

I remember when this shyt dropped my whole hood was blasting this shyt in the summer
 
karim

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L. Deezy said:
Wu Tang had the same content way before Nas and Big...

Lol @ a Kurtis Blow sample being commercial...
Click to expand...
When did I say Kurtis Blow was a pop sample? Trackmasters sampled Sting on the message, that is a pop sample. And what content did Wu-Tang have before Big and Nas?

IWW was a commercially sounding record at the time. That doesn't mean it was a bad record, I think it is one of Nas best albums. But in 1996, and as a follow up to Illmatic, it didn't get more commercial than IWW.
 
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