Nas: Life is Good thread
mannybolone
Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
Discuss.
mannybolone
Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
Comments
Having said that, I'm copping the new KIller Mike.
I read this before listening and (at the time) I thought 'this must not be accurate'...but it kinda is, imo.
The intros seemed really long and (to my taste) came off a bit cheesey. It sounds like an album that was more fun to make than to listen to. Lil' too much of an attempt to have an 'epic' sound...just my opinion. I hope it does well...I like Nas.
That 'Nasty' record is realy fun to listen to, tho.
Ha!
Had a listen through and it's a solid album without ever really impressing me. In fact it's pretty much exactly the kind of album I would expect from a rapper at this period in his career. It's in no way bad but I do wonder if people would be adoring it as much as they seem to be if it wasn't Nas who made a reasonable album with, by his standards, an impressive lack of missteps. Would actually have preferred him to take a few more risks as at least it keeps me interested, this just feels like there was a safety first motto all the way from production to guest rappers.
I also saw him perform it on Colbert with a live band and was prepared to cringe, but man, he sounded great.
"The Don" is pretty damn cool to me. "Locomotive" and "Nasty" are by-the-numbers but fun. I thought it was cool that he rocked the old Hot Day beat. Some of the emo shit he's got on there about Kelis, his daughter, his friends... I can get with. Old Head Rap.
When you contrast this record against those of other Old Head Rappers, I think it distinguishes itself well.
= Grown Ass Man Rap?
b/w
Elderly Blow Job Rap
Yeah I get where you're coming from JP and not trying to do it a disservice. I do think Nas sounds focused on this (I also like the Don) and it's a more complete album than would be expected from most rappers this far in, nevermind that it's Nas.
And yet, once I got past the surprise that Nas was on form and the beats were of a certain standard I kind of lost interest. I'll revisit it anyway and give the tracks more time to breathe on their own but I personally felt that the album's professionalism left it all a little dry. I'd always take uneven highlights over a solid end to end and there just didn't seem much there which I wanted to revisit. Too polished for its own good perhaps, an issue I have with a lot of major releases these days.
I realise I'm probably not the target audience for new Nas releases anyway but I'm always interested in what he's putting out. Guess my expectations may be part of his problem.
I kind of disagree with this take. I've read it from a few critics, saying they'd prefer the Nas that has a disastrous 2/3 of an album with two or three great songs. I think God's Son is a wreck and while "Made You Look" is great, isn't it rendered a little less so by the realization that this is a formula? It was just as much a formula when he made that record; we all just didn't think he still had it in him. (for me, the winner on that album is "Get Down", which is still a little formulaic but isn't quite as anthemic as "Made You Look".)
I think if you look at his output, you've got one absolutely black-out incredible album; one uneven but pretty good album; and a East River barge's worth of total shit, with occasional shining moments. Surely there are well-published critics ten years my junior out there who are "You Owe Me" apologists, but between you and me, fuck all that.
For a 35 year old guy with a daughter who still listens to Illmatic on a fairly regular basis and can occasionally be spotted wearing cargo shorts, I'm pretty satisfied with this record. I'm not sure I want the 7 song EP that we could ostensibly have if he had never made the other shit.
*that said, this is hilarious: "every Salaam Remi track is like a breakbeat??? backed by a symphony??? backed by a flugelhorn??? with a rasta toasting on top"
Unbelievable! I'd never heard that story before.
And since you brought up God's Son: I agree that "Get Down" and "Made You Look" are the only real joints on there, and Street's Disciple has a similar hits-to-misses ratio (with "You Know My Style" and "Thief's Theme" being the only songs I check for. But that may say more about me being old and preferring to hear him over some
Ha! Probably could have saved myself some grey cells if I'd read Noz's summary before posting. Yeah to be fair my interest in a new album by Nas is casual at best these days so my assessment is no doubt affected by people I know raving about it to me before I got round to listening to it.
It's going to stay in rotation for a bit on the IPhone and, as a 34 year old guy, I can't say I'm not pleased by the prospect of having a new Nas album that I don't have to try to forget about as soon as I've played it through. I just suspect that my own tastes have moved far enough away from this kind of production that it's registering more as a pleasant listen through than something I want to return to a lot.
Quite possibly the audio equivalent of "it's not you, it's me".
Locomotive is dope.