Anyone can see the incredible density and precision of the language, but you probably have to listen to it to feel its range and depth of emotion. But despite a beautiful song here and there, and no matter how well his albums have sold, he hasn’t made any remotely as good as “Illmatic.” His art made him the person he wanted to be, which made him unable to make that kind of art anymore. He rapped his way out of them as he enshrined them he got what he wished for. He does, even though he’s twenty years removed from the life he made his masterpiece out of, his portrait of the artist as a young man in the Queensbridge housing projects in Long Island City that he loved and feared and resented. Like this is Nas, who became famous with his second album, in 1996, but who made his name with his first album, “Illmatic,” twenty years ago, and likes to rap about how he still looks like the twenty-year-old who made it.
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