Albums Nas & DJ Premier - Light-Years (Discussion Thread)

[Tetris v2.0]

To be fair I have too much respect for Marco Polo to call him some white boy. He's a legend, I respect him. My issue is twofold. I vividly remember nikkas clowning Hit Boy for sample packs during the KD run. Especially when he'd have horns in tracks. I vividly remember Pete Rock laughing about the sound being an imitation of the real thing. Even on this forum there was discussion about it. Can't remember the track but Hit Boy sampled a very basic, super common pack for one of the horns and dudes gave him a lot of shyt for it.

I don't fukk with most sample packs, which is why I can't stand a lot of modern Griselda shyt (Beat Butcha). I will say when it comes to white boys, Alchemist and Jake One have good drum kits. But it gets to my second issue: I don't think the sound translates well in a lot of rap music because it sounds static and lifeless. It rarely sounds like musicians are naturally jamming and being recorded - instead it sounds like guys are standing around playing what they think will work for rap. It's very glaring on this album. Like that AZ track where it seems like they're trying to interpolate/riff off some Nautilus type shyt and it just sounds lame as fukk. That's a Polo sample pack btw.

Yeah agreed. I like Marco Polo production a lot, just seems weird that his sounds would be used at all for this... That might have more to do with the Ian/Brady Watt connection...

Again I think this has to do with DJ Premier business agreements and how he releases music as a solo artist/duo. PRhyme embraced this as the concept, but Premo seems to only make beats from sound packs and live bands when he's releasing music himself like these 3 projects this year

His random placements over the last few years sound like his normal beats...

As for Hit, he's known to do this. Get Light on KD3 was basically a loop from a popular sound pack, there are other examples from that run as well that I can't place at the moment

 

[JoelB]

fukk sales. We talking straight up about music scrutiny. I have never seen a rapper be begged to work with the producers on his first album the way Nas does. It’s to the point of retardation. People will literally ignore whole albums if they don’t have the producer track list. But it’s only certain ones cause cats like LES don’t even get the love he should get and he been producing classic Nas moments up until 06.

Im bringing up sales to Clad to see what metrics he's using. Nas is clearly one of the most scrutinized rappers. Think pieces everywhere anytime he drops.

Im not seeing that with other artists. Thug came home from jail, dropped some trash and nikkas forgot about it. I dont remember in depth discussions about it like what we're doing now.

That's not true...were you around when Lost Tapes 2 (an album of leftovers) and Nasir dropped?

Both cases the production still got criticized more. I remember nikkas flipped out when they found out how Nas recorded for Ye... Kanye was still editing the beats on the drive to the listening party? lol

was Nas supposed to get blamed for that? @ajnapoleon

 

[ajnapoleon]

Im bringing up sales to Clad to see what metrics he's using. Nas is clearly one of the most scrutinized rappers. Think pieces everywhere anytime he drops.

Im not seeing that with other artists. Thug came home from jail, dropped some trash and nikkas forgot about it. I dont remember in depth discussions about it like what we're doing now.




Both cases the production still got criticized more. I remember nikkas flipped out when they found out how Nas recorded for Ye... Kanye was still editing the beats on the drive to the listening party? lol

was Nas supposed to get blamed for that? @ajnapoleon

Breh I’m saying nas don’t get the smoke others get

Because he nas


Does that make sense


By no means am I saying nothing is ever said

I’m saying the little bit he gets it never lingers


And Kanye was on that getting super weird arch back then

Nas didn’t know he gets no blame for that

In fact he was too damn trusting at that time with that situation

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Both cases the production still got criticized more. I remember nikkas flipped out when they found out how Nas recorded for Ye... Kanye was still editing the beats on the drive to the listening party? lol

The production got killed on the Ye album when it dropped but I remember equally, a ton of complaints on twitter when it was released, about Nas being off-beat flow wise.

 

[T.he I.nformant]

What’s funny is there’s about 5 tracks on LT2 better than everything on here.

I gotta hear them. What’s the 5?

 

[ajnapoleon]

Yeah agreed. I like Marco Polo production a lot, just seems weird that his sounds would be used at all for this... That might have more to do with the Ian/Brady Watt connection...

Again I think this has to do with DJ Premier business agreements and how he releases music as a solo artist/duo. PRhyme embraced this as the concept, but Premo seems to only make beats from sound packs and live bands when he's releasing music himself like these 3 projects this year

His random placements over the last few years sound like his normal beats...

As for Hit, he's known to do this. Get Light on KD3 was basically a loop from a popular sound pack, there are other examples from that run as well that I can't place at the moment

Marco Polo last 3 albums with masta ace would have fit nas perfectly


damn you made me think of that

 

[ajnapoleon]

Are u kidding me? nikka will have a perfectly good set or production and nikkas will say Nas picks wack beats. Meanwhile this nikka has picked some of the best beats of all time. Its narratives. nikkas will write his shyt off just cause it ain’t his first album. I watched it with this HitBoy run. nikka will get shytted on if he ever wants to do a commercial track as well. nikkas have shyt on perfectly good songs cause they blew up. I’ve seen “purist” shyt on If I Ruled The World. nikka been fighting that battle since 96.

To be real I loved the hit boy run

I couldn’t understand the issue from fans

Then it hit me


Those people want illmatic 2 same producers same sequence

Same damn theme


They will never be happy

 

[ThirdAct]

More evidence Nas is the GOAT. Everyone else gets passes and graded on a curve.

Ding ding

 

[Cladyclad]

Cube? Da Baby? Wale? huh?

The last time Wale was relevant was Kai Cenant not knowing who he was at the award show...



Every Kings Disease album outsold that. How can his music be more scrutinized when less people are even listening to it?

You just prove my point. The slander you said about wale Is what I’m talking about

and if Wale irrelevant what is Nas?

you post a tweet of Wale selling 22k

but Nas last album sold like 16k

so that’s a weird flex lol

 

[Mike the Executioner]

Nas wanted to put Em on Daughters but Eminem said he had done so much Hailey bars he didn't want to go back to that well.

And then he proceeded to make more songs about Hailie later on.

I'm glad Eminem turned it down because I can't imagine him on a song like that, especially 2012 Eminem.

 

[QBN]

This was a good interview. I liked when Nas talked about making cryptocurrency and AI technology accessible to the Black community (he said "the hood" but I know what that means to me).

It's funny, some cats were mad about Nas' crypto bars but they have no problem listening to rappers rhyme about selling drugs.

 

[NormanConnors]

Have been listening to this album nonstop since Friday. The production here is so good. I'm really loving this album.

Been stuck on its time for a good minute, Preem did some work on that boy

 

[JoelB]

Breh I’m saying nas don’t get the smoke others get

Because he nas


Does that make sense


By no means am I saying nothing is ever said

I’m saying the little bit he gets it never lingers


And Kanye was on that getting super weird arch back then

Nas didn’t know he gets no blame for that

In fact he was too damn trusting at that time with that situation

IWW got criticized for not being Illmatic
I Am...was criticized for being too commercial. Why he got on Fur coats with Puff...he too jiggy now
Nastradamus was called wack although it got all time great nas records on it
Streets Disciple was critiqued heavily...too much filler
Hip Hop Is Dead- how dare he say that. Rappers took offense
DJ Vlad going on a campaign about Nas production
Nasir album - let Kanye have too much control. He rapping off beat (lil did we know Nas was rapping to different beats than what we actually got)
Hit Boy albums - this aint what we want. We want premo, Alc, etc


There is always smoke surrounding Nas. If he was rapping like trash, he would get even more smoke...but he's not, he's still rhyming. Its always going to be about direction/production for the most part. which is why every release has half the fan base wanting another producer to direct the album. It will always be like this

 

[Awesome Wells]

Break beat era when albums had beats like...Welcome To The Underground? NYSOM3? Come on man lol. This album has clear deviations from that sound. The problem is they aren't good.

Break beat era doesn't mean just using break beats for drums, bro.

I don’t know where you're from (it's not NYC), but a lot of y'all clearly weren't there for the sh*t y'all speak on. Preem said they wanted to do something that felt like "the era". They've said this mad times. That means stripped down production, without the need for heavy samples, so that the beats can knock. So yes, joints like "Welcome to the Underground" is how a lot of records sounded back in that era. We grew up to those kinds records in NYC.

When they played the album for us, they said, "This is like some Just-Ice sh*t". For those of us that grow up or were around for that era, we knew exactly what Nas meant. So there are no "deviations" unless you're an outsider looking for dude to make "a regular" album like that other dude said. This sh*t is for people who were there for the era. If it doesn't resonate with you, that's because it's not for you. And that's alright.

 

[ThirdAct]

"Nas isn't scrutinized at all!!"

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