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Hitboy was a beast in his 2021 run with KD2 and the first magic being absolute classics.This year my guy's been mid af both KD3 and magic 2 especially magic 2 disappointed alot
The problem with popular narratives is that people tend to run with them long after their expiration date. Nas had a 2-album low in the late 90s - and even that was partially due to the infamous leak. Here’s what the part-time fans missed: Stillmatic, God’s Son, The Lost Tapes (some artists never match the quality of *that* 3 album run, nevermind Illmatic and IWW), Street’s Disciple, Hip Hop is Dead…. And all before 2012 when he released another one of his best: Life is Good. All well before the KD. I’m a big fan of yours Navie, but you’re talking about my boy here. Had to say something!
Stillmatic & God's Son had some great songs, but they both also had some mediocre filler tracks. The track "Book of Rhymes" was a mixed bag, the lyrics are great but he's so pretentious in b/w verses like "this can't be me writing this BULLshit" I'm like dude, these verses are better than a 3rd or more of this album 🙄😂
@@alchemistrpm82 Maybe. It's been a minute since I listened to either but looking back at the track lists, there were definitely more on Stillmatic that I remember REALLY liking compared to God Son (even though I remember playing GS way more). But to each their own. Those 2 albums when they were new, and only recently Illmatic, are the only ones from Nas I've heard in entirety. And I just never got hooked enough to explore the whole catalog
I respect his beat selection even if I don't love it. He's trying to play with different vibes and sounds and be unique and sometimes you're gonna fall flat in doing so.
There was constant talk about Nas & DJ Premier doing a joint album together which likely would’ve been one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time. Such a shame that it never transpired.
Agreed! I know I'm a rare Nas fan that'll say "Life Is Good" is one of my favorite albums he made. "Stay" and "Cherry Wine" are songs I still listen to regularly today
I mean, hes also one of the best beat pickers. 2 classic albums back to back, then stillmatics beats are insane. This “bad beat picker” narrative is insane
@@user-ky8nd2rz4f After your comment I listened to God's Son for the 1st time in over 10 years. 3 (quite solid) tracks in I thought maybe my memory exaggerated the negative but I kept listening. I wrote up like a whole review I might use to kick off a music review channel I've been considering, but in the meantime, my thoughts on God's Son track by track: (1) Solid (2) Solid (3) Solid (4) Nice beat. Decent hook & 1st verse. Weak 2nd verse (5) Trash beat, trash verses. (6) Weak, plain beat. Cheesy hook. Technically some of the album's best verses. (7) Positive song but cheesy beat & hook. Corny 'classroom role model' delivery with very basic lyrics. (8) Fire beat. Some of the best verses. Marred by pretentious dialogue b/w verses (9) Good song, verses could be stronger though. (10) Beat is okay. Hook is so-so. Verses are average to weak. (11) Beat is okay, could be stronger to fit the theme. 1st verse is fire, 2nd is weak, 3rd is in between. (12) Nice beat. Good hook. Verses are weak to average. (13) Decently good song. Beat, hook, and tone of delivery fit the mood, but the verses are kind of average.
@@user-ky8nd2rz4f Oh you WERE replying to the comment where I mentioned beats. But yeah there were a few, Zone Out being the worst. I Can was cheesy, Hey Nas was so-so but really basic. Warrior's Song was decent but the verse part was average and overall it could've sounded more dramatic and "warrior" like. Mastermind was decent, not the album's best. Made You Look was great but could've used more low-end.
So glad I found your channel, not that I'm planning to become a hip hop producer anyday but it gives me new appreciation of all these classics. Great stuff
Just came across your page and the way you really break down your videos are amazing. Credit to you. Definitely will be checking out more of you're channel
Huge fan of your videos! Really helping and inspiring me. I would love to see you do something on Statik Selektah. I think he is an amazing producer we could learn a lot from. Thanks for all your videos and hard work!
@@wesleywayne303 True, his song "War" on the album God's Son is my top 3 favorite Nas song of all time. Edit: My bad, I think "War" was on Street's Disciple.
Kings disease was a crazy drop and honestly reversed his aging by up to 10 years lmao not really but really seemed like a career startijg album but it was a career revising album!
@@wirsuchendich9364 you right but not as much as beats made by beginners out from tutorials, kids this days have habit of posting everything even first trash beats
This video ended up being something totally different than what i was expecting and i loved it. Subscribed and turned my notifications on immediately 🔥
Love the tiltle ! Watching the video now. Edit : Great video ! I thought it was going to be something totally different lol. I went from never listening to Nas, to listen to him daily since I discovered his recent albums 2 years ago. Hit-boy has become one of my favorite producers, I love how he brings new ideas to boombap.
Yo this is a well structures vid. You dont just explain it clearly. You also gave really good examples. Really inspired me to be more experimental (even though just a bit) with my drum samples 🔥
My favorite rapper of all time got to see him perform live. I know he had a rough streak of bad beats but his Life is Good album is actually a good Nas album with pretty good beats imo.
Agreed. Stillmatic was a great welcome back from the rough streak. The following albums I think were still very much improved from said streak but not up to Stillmatic's par.. But LIfe is Good is when it seemed to take another leap forward.
@@alchemistrpm82 of course. Another great album. I just think stillmatic was the first album that recharged nas back from the dip after his first two albums.
I haven't liked all of Nas' beats that he's hopped on, but I respect that he continually keeps challenging himself (that classical/hip-hop track off of Lost Tapes 2 comes to mind)
That "Nas picks bad beats" narrative is perpetuated by people like vlad and peter rosenberg. Sadly, that narrative gets repeated over and over again, and people who know nothing about real hip hop start believing that crap. Hip hop goes through phases. If anything, I'd say he maybe didn't arrange his songs to flow a certain way on certain albums. Hell, when you go back and listen to Jay-Z's Vol. 3 "Life & And Times of S.Carter", you could say a lot of those songs didn't age well. People get caught up in the popularity contest and buy into foolishness. Check the rhyme.
@@CoolOutSessions910 Ya know, there used to be a time before glorified "Super Producers" ruled the day, that the beat didn't have to be all that. People just listened to the words. So to me it's no such thing as a bad beat. If the MC is dope enough, the beat is just a canvas for the artist to paint on. But people got to the point where you had to have a Pharrell beat or a Timbaland beat. So here we are. Illmatic is a classic till this day. Nobody ever bragged about those beats
@@CoolOutSessions910that how MCs do it,go look at old Big Daddy Kane videos,one of them have him in the studio rapping to the mic while reading what he wrote,I’m a former MC,if you haven’t done it quit criticizing or critiquing things you clearly don’t understand,quit believing that mess that rappers really be spitting off the dome
love that you talked about Thun, I was actually doing really shit and I decided to listen to KD3 and fell in love with the sampling on Thun. I hadn't touch FL in months and it got me back in trying to learn
I dont think he picks bad beat , he just goes offbase from what people expected , sometimes our music vibe may not be the best for the listeners but not that is bad.... what may have motivated him may not have been what people wanted. People just wanted way tok much from him and he wanted to try things , i love his outing on distant relatives though, His career growth showed the man was growing and that he was not stock in one spot like some other folks are ,look at him now making 5 albums in 3years....
Idk why people give shit to Nas for his choice of beats when theres so many other rappers who stick to one style and usually almost never change from it, but you guys arent ready to talk about that
loved that example you did that showed if you tweaked it a little it turns into a french house song lol. it's stuff like that to me that shows the benefits of having a wide music pallet. your example sounded just like daft punk
Nobody is a worse beat picker than Canibus. The only album of his that had dope production was "Rip The Jacker" and that's because he sent his acapellas to "Stoupe The Enemy of Mankind from Jedi Mind Trick and made the beats around his vocals and Canibus was in the army so he didn't hear them. Otherwise he would still be blaming Wyclef. He owes Wyclef an apology after he turned down Dj Premier & D'Angelo's- Devil's Pie
The Canibus slander needs to chill. He obviously didn't have any Guidance early on. And he has had Bangers on his early albums! Stop It. "How We Roll" produced by Clark Kent was probably the best song beat wise from his Debut. Jay-Z years later recycles the same sample on ",What more can I say" nobody bats and eye just cause it's Jay. The hypocrisy real!
and these people saying this, also dont understand he writes to the bets at hand and thats why you cant swap his verses out on different beats like you can with a Jadakiss or 2Pac. They'll say, "he killed it LYRICALLY but...." not understanding if it was a different beats then it would be different lyrics.
I think saying it wasn't until the last 3 years that he started gaining praise and beats got better is a stretch. He had a tough run after the first two albums beat-wise but he's always been praised as a top notch lyricist, and it was really Stillmatic where he made the turn around beat-wise.... He has modernized his sound in the last 3 and I think earned new, younger, fans.
That being said I love the video as always and agree that Hit-Boy has really helped him find himself in a new way. Nas is my favorite rapper all time and seeing this renaissance over the last 3 years has been an absolute pleasure. Hit Boy has really balanced old school feel with modern appeal and its so natural and he does an amazing job finding space for nas to do his thing too. Few do that better than Hit Boy, If any.
I’ve always wanted to like Nas but felt the beats were lacking. He’s a dope lyricist but the beats just don’t match his delivery. I’ll listen to him but he never makes it into regular rotation because the shit just don’t bump. Nas makes some shit to provoke thought but never makes bangers.
"Y'all can keep y'all weak beats, from your corny producers There's a new king of the streets, you're gonna get used to I was the old king of the streets, that y'all once hated But now I reinvented myself, and y'all all waited... Nas" -The Cross/Nas
over a sparse Eminem beat, i love that. he ethered Navie and guys like him in advance lol Thats what happens when you left software dictate everything, you end up able to emulate styles you hear but cant create a signature of your own. exactly why most of these folks instumentation all sound and move the same. #FactoryLineProducers
All they do is say that Nas picks bad beats. Of course, one could put together an album worth of bad beats Nas picks but one can do the same for every other rapper who has an extensive catalogue.
Let an artist breathe. He is not always going to create something you instantly fall in love with. They have their own journey where something they create will not resonate with everyone. To nitpick that and blame an artist is not good. Wait for your turn. Be patient. They will get you what you want.
"Kings Disease" is actually Gout. The disconnect has taken me this long to realize they are talking about what used to be known as "Lead Singer Disease"
the nas picks bad beats narrative has been one of the biggest false narratives for awhile. It became another way of saying they waned Illmatic Nas when the content was undeniable. Even in the 2000s guys like Salaam Remi laced him with classic beats like made you look, get down and theifs theme. Hit Boy has given him his most consistent run in a minute but I wish people knock that narrative. Even with Magic 2 it seems to have started up again but they seem to be more about song ideas/choices than the beat
you hitit right on the head. Some people hear artists for the first time and want them in that box forever and when that doesnt happen, all they do is complain that it wasnt and start judging from an unrealistic place.
If I Am would of been released as the original double album he would of had 3 classics in a row and nobody would of been talking about him selling out. He's had some duds like any rapper but I never bought into that narrative that he's the worst beat picker. Stillmatic and God's Son are classics with dope production. Plus Life is Good had great production as well. The Untitled album had dope production...If it wasn't for the label censoring the title and and making him put that corny song with Game and Chris on it rather than Be A N***a Too, that album would be considered one of his best. You could maybe argue Streets Disciple and Hip Hop is Dead were weak albums but still had plenty of good tracks.
Naw nas never picked bad beats. He never picked radio single tracks type beats and his hooks were questionable but If you listen to all his albums his beats were pure underground hip hop. NAS biggest problem is that he’s a underground type mc with mainstream popularity so people are expecting a mainstream sound from him when he’s not trying to cater to that sound. Every artist has a bad beat or two on there albums and I’d argue that nas isn’t different from any other mainstream artist from his era
Crazy Beat playing in the background #Bless Up Man & I see people always talking about Nas beat selection being bad which I don't agree with Because his writing stayed Madblowing story kept Inspiring #NasTheLivingLegend
Beat selection is subjective..good video but from a artist perspective it’s their art it’s what they feel ..when we listen to a album we step into their world ..life is good was dope too
man, i dont mean to sound has im the biggest goat or anything like that, but sometimes i find myself doing things like this and normally i discard them, damn, and they just use it and make some gold tracks on it, this is really major to me, ty Navie!
hit-boy is dope but i feel like nas should make a joint album with alchemist. the chemistry between those two is amazing, just with "glorious (cormega ft. nas)" in my opinion he made the best verse last year
I agree he did have a suspect ear for beats. But it was more then that. When Nas first came out. That shining suite wearing movement had hit a year or so after. This put Nas in a position to switch. Do you stay lyrical and all the way Hip Hop. Or do you join that R&B aka Rap and Bull$hit movement that was taking over the way. Cue Puffy and his wave. When Nas jumped on that train. That’s when everyone starting hating on him. A lot of rapper though fell victim to that shining leather suite wave cue the Lox. That was the initial movement of the commercial Hip Hop. Which in my opinion was the down fall of true Hip Hop. And why hip hop nowadays is trashhhh! Back then you didn’t want to sound like everyone else. Now everyone sounds like they are related. Lol
yet nobody gives Jay,etc shit for doing the same, they later held it against Nas and the narrative then became he couldnt change ith the times. the narratives are bullshit period. when yall say he git a bad ear for beats, all you're saying is you dont like what he likes. There's nothing wrong with the beats he picks. im 1000% sure that you like beats that others, including Nas, dont like. Yall also dont understand the craft because he's writing THOSE LYRICS to those beats, and for the slow kids in class, that means you DONT GET those lyrics, without those beats. He's nit a 2Pac rapper where every verse has the same flow, he adapts to the instrumentation. Thats something Navie is oblivious of and its sad.
Been sayin it for over a decade. Mad nice on the mic but got no fuckin idea when it comes to pickin up beats. I think it’s arrogance, so many MCs think they’re so dope they can make any track a classic but what they forget is they’re only 50% of the equation. It takes a dope beat and a dope mc to make a classic.
I don't know why "classic boom bap" is constantly mentioned on here because after 1994's iLLmatic, Nas almost entirely stayed away from that style in search of more radio friendly pop beats. If he had let only Large Professor, Pete Rock, and Premier handle ALL of his production, he wouldn't have the reputation for picking wack beats.
That's a false narrative. Smh. They were unique. Not meant to sound like anything else out. It definitely wasn't radio friendly music either. As a real fan, it was never about the beats. And never will be.
False, fam. Every rapper has mid to bad beats on their albums, especially then. The narrative only started through haters and Nas choosing to not ride any popular waves after Nastradamus. People were too used to listening to songs just for the beat
I don’t think it’s weak beats. As a real artist you don’t paint the same picture. You try new things, not everyone going to agree with it. Or you’ll end up like future with everything being the same.
That's literally how Kanye does his music. Every album sounds very different from each other, and Yeezus recently showed its influence with Utopia on tracks like Modern Jam and Circus Maximus.
