See here’s the thing.
There’s a way to reference Illmatic WITHOUT being pretentious and overbearing. I like the way this particular writer references Illmatic as a means of talking about how he had to grow out of always comparing Nas albums TO Illmatic and how in so doing that he matured as a listener. Several times throughout the article he actually takes responsibility for being one of those “fans” who wouldn’t let Nas grow past Illmatic.
He also did what the Rolling Stone article didn’t do, which is actually formulate all of his thoughts and opinions around MAGIC. He did song breakdowns and highlighted lyrics he felt and WHY he felt them.
Nas is the most respected rapper to grace a microphone. I can go down an entire list of rappers, actors, actresses, athletes, politicians, academics, etc, etc that say Nas is the best or their favorite. And you idiots got like 10 pages and counting about Peter Rosenberg
its disgusting. Lebron's game is still picked apart and critiqued insanely to this day. That's the penalty of greatness. It's a level of greatness noone has seen for this amount of time. Yall have an emotional attachment to Nas, yall actually acknowledge yallselves as "Stans". Everyone is not going to worship Nas as GOD like yall do and champion everything Nas does on the level yall want them to. And yes, some nikkas are going to be haters. But trust me, yall lives would be much better if yall stop caring as much about the haters. And stop "STAN"ing other humans. Nas is not GOD. He's just the greatest rapper that ever lived and that's probably enough for him. You hear him calling himself that more and more. He knows it, relax with this dumb shyt. I have to super scroll to get past all this Rosenberg shyt smmfh
Like Nas is my #2 (Redman's my personal GOAT) but it's not disrespect to feel that a few albums and creative decisions were below average to bad.
