Without Illmatic and Ether, where does Nas rank in your best MCs list?

[CashmereThoughts]

I'd put him in the mid to bottom 200's at least. I'm sorry but most of his influence is with his first album. No rapper is saying they were influenced by Oochie Wally or Nastradamus. Only time I hear nikkas rocking Nas joints outside of the internet is when they're listening to Illmatic.

Stillmatic was above average though not gonna front. And God's Son was alright. But it's still not enough to rank him higher. There's just too many better MCs with greater amount of material that aged better.

Ether not close to one of his best songs and ranking nas who made it was written, untitled, lost tapes, stillmatic and god son still easily in the top 20.

 

[ManBearPig]

IWW would have had 5 mic if Illmatic didn't set the bar so high

IWW, God Son, Lost Tapes, and Stillmatic? Still top 10.

 

[ManBearPig]

without Illmatic, "It was written" would've got better reviews. Matter of fact, his whole catalogue would've been viewed differently because they wouldn't be compared to Illmatic not only in term of quality, but in term of sound and production credits as well.

U beat me to it

 

[ManBearPig]

Ether a great diss but there were like 5 songs on IWW that were CLEARLY better

 

[Take It In Blood]

Still above Rakim and Jay Z

 

[Pop123]

Random but I dont really like Ether or Takeover as songs, . No Vaseline is 100x better than both them shyts.

 

[Piff Perkins]

You can’t have Stillmatic without Ether. Or are you suggesting an alternative timeline where the battle never took place?


If thats the case then that means IWW is Nas’s debut album...

Which came out the gate selling double platinum and was number 1 for four consecutive weeks.


Without Illmatic It Was Written is basically just a commercially successful illmatic. I could see the Source giving IWW a 4.5 instead of 4. Nas would still be one of the most anticipated MC’s due to guest verses on OBFCL and 4,3,2,1.

Illmatic was bootlegged to hell. Without the similar fear, perhaps Nas and Steve Stoute keep the OG I am.. concept as a double album. Which probably would’ve gotten him his 5 mic rating and erased Nastradamus from the discography (which means no Lost Tapes)

Stillmatic would’ve kept its original concept name (Nastalgia)

So then we have Gods Son (minus Last Real nikka Alive)

Streets Disciple

Hip Hop Is Dead

Untitled

Life Is Good


You still have a top ten MC. Depending on if Nas used some of the classic Kanye beats that he was given prior to the beef, maybe worked with Just Blaze, then you still have a top 5 MC.

So he’d be right where he is now.

I talk about this with my friend, who is a Hov stan, debate this a lot and we disagree. He says that without Nastradamus, Takeover wouldn't exist and thus Ether/Last Real nikka Alive wouldn't exist. My view is that while Nastradamus not existing (and the original I Am existing instead) would eliminate the perception that Nas fell off, Jay would still HAVE to drop Takeover (in some iteration or another) at some point in the early 00s. Nas explained it on Last Real nikka Alive. Jay had already surpassed Nas in terms of popularity/sales/etc, but in order to be THE MAN he had to take out Nas on wax. What would he have said? Dunno, outside of the Carmen stuff, accusations of being fake deep, etc. Maybe we'd get some "I sell more records than you" bars.

OG I Am would have deaded an entire generation of Nas arguments lol.

 

[FunkDoc1112]

I mean It Was Written, Stillmatic, God's Son, and Life Is Good are all AT LEAST Four Mic-worthy albums, and Untiltled is slept on. I was listening to Y'all My nikkas earlier today...one of his best songs.