The Greatest Rappers Alive Vol 4

"Nasty, Nas the Esco to Escober,now he is Nastradamus'' Just in-case you notice an extra glorification of this man, dont blame me,i got so much love for this dude! When we talk about the art of rapping not just entertaining people with vocal delivery on beats, i mean "Rhythm And Poetry" (RAP), Nas has  proven to be an eccentric lyricist and a poetic philosopher with paranormal abilities to create images in our minds with his unique voice giving the impression of watching a movie when listening to his songs, i confidently state that Nas is a spontaneous combustion of vocabularies stored in a human body, all he needs to prove this is "One Mic". With twenty three years in the game, thirteen studio albums, three collaborative album, two compilation album, one EP album, three mix-tapes, fifteen Grammy award nominations, like Snoop, Nas is one successful black entertainer underrated by the Grammy "Insiders", confirming my judgement that they credit commercially successful albums rather than critically successful albums.

Nas Started his music career in 1991 when he featured on Main Source "Live at the Barbeque" his intellectual delivery and vocal confidence left a remarkable impact on the then small hip hop community and in the following year he was signed to Columbia Records. He released his debut as Nasty Nas with a single titled  "Half Time". Due to his melancholy temperament which gave birth to his perfectionist standards Nas delayed the release of his debut album for about two years, the Illmatic album was finally released in 1994 and was critically acclaimed but not a commercial success, who cared ? Real hip hop disciples followed Nas anyway, his literature about the streets was meant for only people with an in-depth appreciation for creativity and conscious rap. After the entrance of  Bad Boy records and their commercial pattern of music, Columbia records started putting pressure on Nas to go commercial, this street soldier was "REAL" there was no sugar coating or honey lacing to his style, he kept it "streets" and 100% real.

In 1996, Nas finally succumbed to pressure and teamed up with Lauren Hill to create the commercial and  classical "If I Ruled The World" single and we saw Mr Nasir enter the main stream hip hop arena due to the success of the song, this gave him a spot in the hip hop hall of  fame, allow me to deviate here as this song i must say plays a very important role in my life. My Dad normally tunes in to BBC radio every 5.00 AM in the morning to listen to world news back in Nigeria, on this glorious day sometime in 1996, i was sleeping when  pops came to wake me up with excitement and said "Wake up! Come! they are playing your kind of song on BBC" in the confusion of my fresh consciousness i rushed to the living room to find out what he was talking about and Yo! i heard this song playing for the first time in my life, in my previous blogs, The Greatest Rappers Alive Vol 2, i stated how my Dad regarded rap as "Jargon" or gibberish music with no value, he was however overwhelmed when he heard a respectable organization like BBC playing this genre of music, and believe me, my pops never again tried to stop me from listening to rap music from that day, Thanks to NAS!.

I am sure that this gentleman with an unusual persona for a rapper has given a million other hip hop lovers their own story, and the most amazing thing about Nas is that he seems to be getting more energy by the day, in a world where other golden era rappers are fading out, Nas is waxing stronger, with his latest album "Life Is Good" as a testament to this, the album received four Grammy nominations, the highest nomination he has received so far from one album. Nas made some very notable tracks that will for ever keep rap fans marveled at his supernatural creative prowess, songs like "One Mic" where he starts with a lazy approach to the beat then gradually climbs to a raging inferno then siren and the heats goes down again, that song is a masterpiece compared to nothing in existence, then the song "Rewind" where he dominates the instrumental with his uncanny story telling abilities but this time telling it backwards, these are rare and distinctive works in  hip hop culture only a mastermind can conceive such creativity. Quoting from Cool Moe Dee's 2003 book There's a God on the Mic, he states "before Nas, every MC focused on rhyming with a cadence that ultimately put the words that rhymed on beat with the snare drum. Nas created a style of rapping that was more conversational than ever before". This is a testimony that Nas came in the game to innovate it and not to copy laid down rules. 

I can go on and on talking about this rap legend but let me not bore you with long stories as its not my style, however let it be noted that Nas's contribution to rap music is unquantifiable and he has influenced almost every other rapper in the game as he rightly claimed in "Ether" when he almost ended Jay Z's career with the second hottest "diss"song in history after "Hit em up", if not that Jay Z is also lyrically a giant like Nas, i dont think any other rapper could survived the traumatic blows on that song. A true brave heart! 100% street soldier! 5 star hood general! CNN's choice as the greatest lyricist of all time, let it be boldly stated here that Nas is one of the greatest rappers alive.

TO BE CONTINUED.