Nas's Illmatic (15 page)

57.
Reign in Blood
by D.X. Ferris

58.
Shoot Out the Lights
by Hayden Childs

59.
Gentlemen
by Bob Gendron

60.
Rum, Sodomy & the Lash
by Jeffery T. Roesgen

61.
The Gilded Palace of Sin
by Bob Proehl

62.
Pink Flag
by Wilson Neate

63.
xo
by Matthew Lemay

64.
Illmatic
by Matthew Gasteier

65.
Radio City
by Bruce Eaton

69.
69 Love Songs
by L.D. Beghtol

1
See the Kelefah Sanneh book
Why White Kids Love Hip Hop
for a full argument on why this “given” is most likely inaccurate.

2
In fact, Ghostface Killah of the Wu Tang Clan would accuse Biggie of stealing the idea for his cover, which featured a picture of a baby many took to represent Biggie, from
Illmatic’s
cover of Nas as a child. This would start a minor war of words between Nas and Biggie.

3
Biggie, on the other hand, never sounds like he quite has a handle on what he’s saying. The remarkable thing about him as an emcee was that he neither looked nor sounded like an emcee. As he threw out couplets and metaphors, it always seemed as if he was just about to stumble, tongue on teeth, out of breath from his lack of conditioning. Yet he never did.

4
For more on their first encounter, see “Halftime” in chapter eight.

5
Red Hot Lover Tone, later known simply as Tone, would go on to make up one half of the Trackmasters, the producing duo which gave Nas his first significant hit with “Street Dreams,” and produced most of
Illmatic’s
follow-up,
It Was Written
.

6
For proper perspective, Premier remembers that Nas and Big L—another lyrical legend—were signed to Columbia at the same time. However, the latter’s debut album,
Lifestylez Ov Da Poor and Dangerous
, wasn’t released until 1995.

7
While
Illmatic
is widely regarded as the first album to feature such an impressive lineup, there were enough similar records before it by such high-profile artists as Big Daddy Kane and KRS-One that it’s at least clear that the idea was not invented by Nas and his executive production team, however well they perfected it.

8
Minya Oh, as Dennis mentions in his interview, would go on to New York fame as Hot 97’s Miss Info.

9
Rakim, a direct influence on Nas, also had musical blood: his aunt was R&B legend Ruth Brown

10
Though it is almost certainly a coincidence, Texas rapper Big Mello used “Yearning for Your Love” in a very similar way a few years earlier on “Gank Move,” from his 1992 debut
Bone Hard Zaggin
.

11
The remix is also notable for being the actual source of the famous “I’m out for presidents to represent me” sample that Jay-Z and producer Ski used on the emcee’s classics “Dead Presidents I and II,” not the original as is widely assumed.

12
According to Q-Tip, this is not the whole story. “The first beat that he did for “Memory Lane” was some shit that Nas didn’t like. That’s why Nas at the beginning of the one that you hear says, ‘Fuck that other shit.’ The other version was crazy. This one, I liked it, it was a little more jazzy. The other version was just crazy.” Unfortunately, this version seems never to have been released.