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even een copy-paste over het album Illmatic van Nas. Een van de beste albums ooit

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[edit] Music
[edit] Content
Part of the reason for Illmatic's acclaim was the discerning treatment of its subject matter: gang rivalries, desolation, and the ravages of urban poverty. Nas, who was nineteen years old when the album was recorded, realistically depicts the darker side of urbanity, creating highly detailed first-person narratives that deconstruct the troubling lives of inner city teenagers. These narratives originate from Nas' own experiences in his hometown of Queensbridge, as the lyrics and the album cover both allude to the housing projects located in Long Island City section of Queens, New York. According to one columnist:
Nas was a genius introvert who rose out of the rubble of Reaganomics to bless the mic with a forward brand of introspective, redemptive street poetry...[his] narration glorifies the emergent poetic self as the embodiment of an elevated creative state that is potentially attainable by most any ghetto child...[His] narrative voice swerves between personas that are cynical and optimistic, naïve and world-weary, enraged and serene, globally conscious and provincial...[He] was a most worthy candidate to craft a palatable and subversive message for the rotten apple's disenfranchised youth. He was young and observant enough to isolate and analyze the positively formative moments of a project childhood while unflinchingly documenting the tragedies. Throughout lllmatic, listeners are implored to embrace their hardened upbringing as an imperative to move on to bigger and better things, both in the intellectual and material sense.[14]
—Oh Word columnist
The intro, "Genesis", starts with an audio sample of the "Subway Theme" from the 1982 movie Wild Style, the first major hip hop motion picture. Nas made another ode to Wild Style, while shooting the music video for his single, "It Ain't Hard To Tell", on the same stage as the finale scene for the film. Nas' debut, "Live at the Barbeque" is played in the background of "Genesis". On "One Love", Nas writes a series of letters to a friend in prison, recounting several mutual acquaintances and the events that have occurred since the receiver's imprisonment. And in "N.Y. State of Mind", Nas recounts his participation in gang violence, and philosophizes that "Life is parallel to Hell, but I must maintain". The song focuses on a mind state that one can only truly have if they are raised in New York City. In other songs, Nas celebrates life's pleasures and achievements, acknowledging violence as a feature of his socio-economic conditions rather than the focus of his life.
The New York Times noted that Nas "imbues his chronicle with humanity and humor, not just hardness ... [He] reports violence without celebrating it, dwelling on the way life triumphs over grim circumstances rather than the other way around."[15] And Time magazine praised the "submerged emotion" on Illmatic, calling the album a "wake-up call to [Nas]'s listeners."[15]
[edit] Lyrics
Nas standing at the intersection of 41st Ave. and 10th St. in Queensbridge, 1993Along with its powerful narratives of inner-city life and social condition, Illmatic gained acclaim for its lyrical substance. As Marc Lamont Hill of PopMatters writes: "Nas' complex rhyme patterns, clever word play, and impressive vocab took the art [of rapping] to previously unprecedented heights. Building on the pioneering work of Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, and Rakim, tracks like 'Halftime' and the laid back 'One Time 4 Your Mind' demonstrated a [high] level of technical precision and rhetorical dexterity". Hill cites "Memory Lane (Sittin' in da Park)" as "an exemplar of flawless lyricism":[16]
I rap for listeners, blunt heads, fly ladies and prisoners
Hennessy holders and old school niggas, then I be dissin a
Unofficial that smoke woolie thai
I dropped out of Cooley High, gassed up by a cokehead cutie pie
Jungle survivor, fuck who's the liver
My man put the battery in my back, a difference from Energizer
Sentence begins indented, with formality
My duration's infinite, money-wise or physiology
Poetry, that's a part of me, retardedly bop
I drop the ancient manifested hip-hop, straight off the block
I reminisce on park jams, my man was shot for his sheep coat
Childhood lesson made me see him drop in my weed smoke
—Nas, "Memory Lane (Sittin' in da Park)"