Hip Hop Is Dead [Clean] [Edited]

Performer: Nas
Artist: The Game; Jay-Z; Snoop Dogg; Kanye West; Kelis
Engineer: Marc Lee; Conrad Golding; John Stahl; Andrew Dawson; Brian Sumner; Kevin Crouse
Producer: Nas; Salaam Remi; Kanye West; Scott Storch; Aaron Fessel; Chris Webber; Paul Cho; Alvin West; Mark Batson; Devo Springsteen; Dr. Dre; Salaam Remi; Will.I.Am; Kanye West; Scott Storch
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: Personnel: Nas (rap vocals); Kelis, will.i.am (vocals); Jay-Z, Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, The Game (rap vocals); Adam Hill (viola); Vincent Henry (flute, clarinet, soprano saxophone); LeRoi Moore (saxophone); Bruce Purse (trumpet, bass trumpet, flugelhorn); W. Marshall Sealy (French horn); Mark Batson, Salaam Remi (keyboards, drums); Paul Cho, Mike Elizondo (keyboards). Audio Mixers: Dylan Dresdow; Dylan "3-D" Dresdow; Kevin Crouse. Recording information: Amerycan Studios, Hollywood, CA; Chung King, New York, NY; Encore Studios, Burbank, CA; Hit Factory Criteria, Miami, FL; Legacy Studios, New York, NY; NRG Studios, N. Hollywood, CA; Record One Studios, Sherman Oaks, CA; Sony Music Studios, New York, NY; Sunset Sound, Hollywood, CA; The Record Plant, Holywood, CA; The Studio, Philadelphia, PA; Westlake Recording Studios, LA, CA. Title and all, Nas's eighth solo album clearly intends to spark controversy. But what gives Nasir Jones the right to declare that HIP HOP IS DEAD? For one Nas's 5-mic debut album ILLMATIC represents the best of a by-gone era. Since then he's tried to find his place in the ever-evolving genre, flirting with the mainstream to mixed results, all the while mired in beef with former allies and childhood friends as well industry rivals. The fact that HIP-HOP IS DEAD is the product of his teaming with one of those former(?) rivals, Jay-Z, shows that business trumps beef--as Nas emphasizes on track one, "Money Over Bullshit." The title cut, with its pounding Iron Butterfly beat and nihilistic lyrics, is profoundly provocative. And while the long-awaited collaboration with Jay-Z on "Black Republicans" will inevitably draw attention, Nas shows he's best on his own--doing his Sam Spade impression in the hard-boiled detective story "Who Killed It"; producing an unapologetic swansong to his hood life in "Not Going Back"; and spitting introspective street poetry in "Can't Forget About You." Nas is past trying to relive his ILLMATIC glory--and that's ultimately the point--yet HIP HOP IS DEAD contains both the gutter ghetto anthems and gritty brilliance that made him a legend in the first place. Hip Hop Is Dead is not Illmatic. Illmatic stands as one of the most impressive debuts in rap music, and consequently has set up inevitable, and often unfavorable, comparisons with each of Nas' subsequent releases. And so it is practically a given that the two albums in fact do not compare, that the beats, the rhymes, the insight, the flow Mr. Jones had on Illmatic have not been duplicated here, and in all honestly, probably never will. Nas himself seems aware of this -- though he would never admit it -- as throughout the record he references the MCs, the producers, the DJs who made the music what it was and what it is today, many of whom were releasing material in the early '90s, when Nas first made a mark. He himself is one of them. The statement that "hip hop is dead" is clearly meant to be controversial, and was, as rappers and rap fans alike exploded into debate after Nas declared it to be the title of his next album. But it's also a statement that the MC doesn't completely adhere to. He flip-flops between declaring that it has already gone, to warning of its imminent departure, to promising "to carry on tradition," to resurrecting it. But these inconsistencies don't come from contradictions in Nas' beliefs; rather, they stem from the fact that his biggest problem with hip-hop has nothing to do with current talent, but what hip-hop itself has become -- how it's magnified from an art form, from a way the ghetto expressed itself, into a commercialized, corporate entity that Nas himself is part of, something about which he feels more than a little guilty. This is most openly addressed on "Black Republican," which appropriately features an equally guilty (in terms of both improving and commercializing rap music) Jay-Z, who spits out better lines than anything he did on Kingdom Come. The track, which ingeniously samples "Marcia Religiosa" from The Godfather II (a film that, in many ways, parallels Nas' ideas about hip-hop as it deals with the dark side of making money and the problems that befall an overly zealous pursuit of the always crafty American Dream), finds both MCs lamenting the state of the genre while also acknowledging their own participation -- and enjoyment -- of what it's given them. "Black Republican" is an understanding and admittance of hypocrisy, and this sentiment continues in "Not Going Back" and "Carry on Tradition," the latter in which Nas rhymes, "We used to be a ghetto secret/Can't make my mind up if I want that/Or the whole world to peep it." Nas enjoys the fame, but he also realizes that it has hurt the very thing he loves most, his "first wifey." Yet Mr. Jones is not completely blaming himself for hip-hop's demise. In fact, he gives more of that responsibility to those who don't respect it, who don't know its originators, and he takes stabs at them more than at himself (he did release Illmatic, after all). He's also willing to ease up on his criticism and rhyme in more general terms, although it is these tracks (specifically "Still Dreaming" and "Hold Down the Block," but much of the second half of the album as well) on which he loses some of the intensity and intelligence that he displayed earlier in the record. Still, he's able to regain his strength by the end, bringing together the East and West Coast on the Dre-produced "Hustlers," which features a great verse from the Game about trying to decide between buying Illmatic or The Chronic and being the "only Compton ni**a with a New York state of mind." Nas finishes up Hip Hop Is Dead with the spoken word piece "Hope," which, despite its seeming simplicity, shows off his indelible flow, how he raps as easily as he talks. Consciously or not, listeners are reminded that there's a reason he was the one who made Illmatic, and why it, and therefore Nas himself, will continue to be held in high esteem. [A clean version of the album was released in 2006 as well.] ~ Marisa Brown

Rolling Stone (p.72) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Nas never solves the crime, but his point is implicit -- few MCs are taking the artistic chances he does." Entertainment Weekly (p.84) - "[D]enser and more grandiose than the minimalist digital funk heard on rap radio." -- Grade: B Vibe (p.109) - "HIP-HOP IS DEAD is a loud, expansive album, packed with brand names and big ideas -- and is arguably the best thing Nas has done since 1996's IT WAS WRITTEN." XXL (Magazine) (p.133) - "Nas' latest opus comprises solid lyrics and layered beats and proves that hip-hip isn't dead, it's just been asleep..." Mojo (Publisher) (p.100) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "A fully realised, painstakingly compiled assault on hip hop's slide into bling-ridden mediocrity."

With charged poetic lyrics spit in an almost impossibly smooth flow, Nas turned the rap world on its ear in 1994 when the Queens MC unleashed the instantly immortal ILLMATIC. The immaculate record contained few frills, no skits, no celebrity cameos, just the rapper's deceptively complex rhymes, words that lounged in the listener's psyche for days after, layered over beats by some of the best producers of the day. While the following years would find Nas hard-pressed to live up to his supernova debut, he quietly released solid records. In 2001, his spirit revived by a beef with Jay-Z (they would reunite on stage years later), he released the acerbic STILLMATIC, which was followed by a string of critically praised records, but no shortage of controversy.

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