Nas's Illmatic
Authors: Matthew Gasteier
Praise for the series:
It was only a matter of time before a clever publisher realized that there is an audience for whom
Exile on Main Street
or
Electric Ladyland
are as significant and worthy of study as
The Catcher in the Rye
or
Middlemarch…
. The series …is freewheeling and eclectic, ranging from minute rock-geek analysis to idiosyncratic personal celebration—
The New York Times Book Review
Ideal for the rock geek who thinks liner notes just aren’t enough—
Rolling Stone
One of the coolest publishing imprints on the planet—
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These are for the insane collectors out there who appreciate fantastic design, well-executed thinking, and things that make your house look cool. Each volume in this series takes a seminal album and breaks it down in startling minutiae. We love these. We are huge nerds—
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A brilliant series…each one a work of real love—
NME
(UK)
Passionate, obsessive, and smart—
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[A] consistently excellent series—
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(UK)
We …aren’t naive enough to think that we’re your only source for reading about music (but if we had our way …watch out). For those of you who really like to know everything there is to know about an album, you’d do well to check out Continuum’s “33 1/3” series of books—
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For reviews of individual titles in the series, please visit our website at
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For more information on the 33 1/3 series, visit 33third.blogspot.com.
For a complete list of books in the series, see the back of this book.
Matthew Gasteier
2009
The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc
80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038
The Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX
33third.blogspot.com
Copyright © 2009 by Matthew Gasteier
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other wise, without the written permission of the publishers or their agents.
Printed in Canada on 100% postconsumer waste recycled paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gasteier, Matthew.
Illmatic/by Matthew Gasteier.
p. cm. - (33 1/3)
eISBN-13: 978-1-4411-6336-3
1. Nas (Musician). Illmatic. 2. Nas (Musician) 3. Rap (Music)--History and criticism. I. Title.
ML420.N344G37 2009
782.421649092--dc22
2008055441
“One ever feels his twoness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”
W.E.B. DuBois
“The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Acknowledgments
On a basic and apparent level, this book would not have been written without Nas, in my humble opinion the greatest emcee of all time. I owe him thanks not just for
Illmatic
, but for a career that continues to challenge and entertain.
Huge thanks have to go to DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Q-Tip, AZ, and their respective managers, and a particularly strong thank you to MC Serch, who patiently and graciously dealt out his finest wisdom. This book owes a huge debt of gratitude to Adrian Covert and Etan Rosenbloom, who encouraged me when I was on the right track and steered me back when I wasn’t. Thanks also to editor David Barker, who believed I could write the book I wanted to write, and Dave Park and Brandon Wall at Prefix, who gave me the freedom and support I needed to get to the point where I was.
Finally, thank you to Audrey, my co-writer and best friend, who walked me through my ideas, talked me down from the ledge, and guided me towards an infinitely better book.
This book is for Jeffrey, with whom I would have had a lot to talk about.
Black/White
I am white. Over a decade ago, when I began to listen to hip hop—really listen, outside of popular social contexts that the music had already seeped into across white America—this mattered. As a teenager in a predominantly white environment, there were two sides of the pop divide: rock and hip hop. Kids defined themselves by the music they listen to (still do), and even more so, outsiders defined them as well. Listening to hip hop was essentially associating oneself with the black community, How could I pretend that my life paralleled the lives depicted in this music?
I didn’t yet know Rakim’s famous line “it’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re at,” which would become a battle cry of sorts for any hip hop head who didn’t have the stereotypical “black American experience.” But it wasn’t any sense of personal evolution that prompted my expanded musical palate other than the simple freedom that comes with not allowing the music you listen to, the movies you watch, and the art you consume to define you. Music stopped being about the image and the lifestyle—the social ceased to have
priority over the personal. It was no coincidence that I didn’t really
love
music until I began to love hip hop: the same barriers had been holding me back.
Now, a decade later, things are very different. I wasn’t the only one that figured out that you can listen to hip hop without belonging to the hip hop culture, and as the genre has continued to “dominate popular music, anyone interested in the social climate of America ignores hip hop at their own peril. Articles in
The Source
have evolved into articles in
The New Yorker
have evolved into articles in
National Geographic
. However naively, it is no longer important as a hip hop listener to identify yourself as white. Hip hop, created primarily by black Americans, evolved from black American music, is no longer Black music. It is American music.
This is, of course, far from uncharted territory. Since the dawn of recorded music—and before—music made by black Americans has made its way slowly but surely into mainstream America. Jazz, swing, rhythm and blues, and finally rock and roll were all co-opted by the parallel culture. Though the path of these genres was not as, well, black and white as traditional history would imply (Big Mama Thornton may have recorded “Hound Dog” before Elvis, but it was written by a couple of Jewish kids), the oppression of black artists because of the need for a paler face behind the music is undeniable.
The difference between these earlier trends and hip hop’s new path is that the newer art form was the first major post-civil rights musical jump to emerge from a black community. Right as hip hop was ready for primetime, with the release of 1984’s
Run DMC
, MTV started playing videos by black artists and stretching out from their rock-exclusive ethos. Since that major shift, black artists don’t have to worry as much about finding an outlet for their work, and therefore white artists have had little opportunity to step in and fill a void.
The audience for hip hop now looks like America (and I have never bought the decades-long assumption that the genre is primarily consumed by white suburban youths)
1
but the face of hip hop remains very much a black one.
Now the debate has shifted from what it means as a white American to listen to hip hop to what it means to engage in hip hop culture, to take an active role in performing, promoting, and—where I come in—critiquing the genre. As hip hop moves slowly up the chain of respectability, hip hop writers have gained a higher level of exposure. With such exposure comes a degree of cultural power which, whether the writer is white or black, must be constantly examined. The intellectualization of art can have a dangerous impact on artistic intent when it is presented to the consuming public. Greater exposure to an audience that doesn’t know where to begin means a generation of writers is setting the agenda for hip hop; they are the ambassadors of the culture. For white writers, this is even more important, because—assimilated or not—hip hop culture is and always will be a product and a reflection of black America. What does it mean to represent and evaluate a culture to which you do not belong?
Perhaps the greatest irony of this conversation is that critics and writers have (almost) always been removed from the works that they covered. In Cameron Crowe’s fictionalized memoir
Almost Famous
(which was originally titled
The Uncool)
, the legendary rock critic Lester Bangs, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, tells the protagonist to beware of making friends with the bands. “They make you feel cool,” he tells his protegée, “and hey, I met you, you are not cool.” There has always been a separation between the artist and the
audience that is more than just a stage or a television screen, a certain hierarchy that has birthed rock stars and fan clubs alike. But that separation has now been strengthened by an impenetrable divide. You can always learn to play the guitar, get a new haircut, do the hottest drug, or buy the latest kicks. You might even get the girl (or girls) in the end. But you can never change your race.
On an episode of
Ego Trip’s The White Rapper Show
, a program I followed with both low- and high-minded interest, producer Prince Paul hosted a game show where each of the remaining six white rappers had to test their knowledge of black culture. One of the questions was “Black stereotypes that black people secretly believe to be true.” The results were expected: better rhythm, bigger penises, etc, and the whole thing was casual and light-hearted. But beneath the cavalier exploration of racial politics, indicative of the new generation’s open acknowledgment of what was once taboo, there was a kernel of truth. In order to maintain their dominance in hip hop, black artists have accepted certain stereotypes about themselves; that their experience in America is more “real;” that the best way for a black man to establish himself in the world is through brute force and sexual prowess; that their musical talent is natural and unique.