Nygga... the avg rap fan back then aint know a fuhking Sting sample. Especially in The Message.. IWW was a hard sounding album. Stop fuhking reaching just to fit your narrative
it was written is nas best album technically speaking in terms of writing lyrics imo
- Thread starter ronnie46
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Nygga... the avg rap fan back then aint know a fuhking Sting sample. Especially in The Message.. IWW was a hard sounding album. Stop fuhking reaching just to fit your narrative
Nas was called a sell out in '96 because it was written was considered too comercial, it was definitely not looked at as a hard sounding album.
Lol’z he used to say imo after every post
he was spot on with this thread title tho, IWW was Nas at his peak
They aren't actually. Look at the lyrics to songs like "Hypnotize", "Mo Money Mo Problems" or even "Benjamins". Those are hardly commercial. Yeah, a lot of those Nas joints are mafiosos, but so is the majority of No Way Out.
Thats magazines narratives... shootouts, Take it in Blood, live nikka rap, watch dem nyggas etc... fukkouttahere. Shyt was hard.. no dance records on there.
Alexander Wiggin
All Star
Back then the rap media was a lot harsher than today and things like credibility and not selling out was a big deal. That's why ready to die chronic infamous didn't get 5 mics. I remember the ready to die review they were talking about the album like it was great but nothing outstanding. Jeru the damaja was dissing bad boy for the shiny attitude and hip hop began the separation between mainstream and underground when it used to be the same at least in NY. It was written and stakes is high were the proof of that
Silent murder was a part of the album for me and if he had put déjà vu on it it would have been even grimier.
erker
All Star
Might be technically his best in terms of writing lyrics, but Illmatic is the whole package and as such superior to me. Some of the beats on It Was Written are too jiggy for my taste. Some great beats also, but the bad ones bring the album down.
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It's not magazine narratives, it's what it was at the time. The mixing and mastering was polished, the Trackmasters were responsible for the overall sound of the album and sampled 80's pop records, the lead single had Lauryn Hill singing the hook (and the Fugees were looked at as comercial back then too) and the lyrics of the verses were nonsensical, the videos were flashy, and Nas turned from gritty street poet to bragadocious mafioso rapper. In retrospect, the album doesn't sound comercial, but in 96 it did and it wasn't what people who bought and celebrated illmatic wanted to hear. It was as if Kendrick Lamar had released a mumble rap record in 2014 after dropping m.a.a.d. city in 2012. That we look at the album differently today is because the overall direction of hiphop changed from gritty to flashy in 96. Funnily enough, inspired by Ready to Die, It was written set the blueprint for comercial street records such as Life after Death or Capital Punishmend that everybody followed until the early 2000's: Big radio record as a lead single, a couple of pop friendly records, mixed in with gritty producers such as premier or havoc for "street singles" whose beats were polished in the mixing room. But that didn't help Nas, whose career was looked at as being in steady decline until Stillmatic came out. That's why Jay said that he went from Nasty Nas to Escos trash and that he had a one-hot-album-every-ten-year average.
Nas dropped "I gave you power" in that album, that alone made the album near classic. He more than made it up for the non commercial songs with some of his best material ever written, IMO.
Have you listened to the record and what Nas is imagining the world he ruled to look like? That shyt makes no sense whatsoever and was pointed out a lot back in those says.nikka WHAT
It is also a very deceptively grimy album. The beats take some sting out of the griminess, but most songs are on some grimy shyt from the rip.
1. The message - A battle cry going at all the big dogs.
2. I Gave you power - One of the most vivid songs on gun violence ever made
3. Take it in Blood - What else needs to be said?
4. Suspect, Shootouts, Live nikka Rap, Set up - grimy ass gangster short stories on wax that would make Tarantino and Scorsese envious.
1. The message - A battle cry going at all the big dogs.
2. I Gave you power - One of the most vivid songs on gun violence ever made
3. Take it in Blood - What else needs to be said?
4. Suspect, Shootouts, Live nikka Rap, Set up - grimy ass gangster short stories on wax that would make Tarantino and Scorsese envious.
Alexander Wiggin
All Star
people can't judge it was writen by the standards of back then. I remember people sayin that the it ain't hard to tell beat was for the female (because of the mj sample) but the grimey lyrics made it cool and they prefer the nobody beats the biz remix. the backpacker stance back then was wild
