Jun 16, 2018 I've listened to almost all of Nas's albums. I think the good of this new project outweighs the bad when alls said and done, but if we are drawn to Nas by his lyricism, we should at least analyze the lyrics. The first listen or two, I felt like the album had a conscious and rebellious side to it I liked, but the more I dug into it, the more shallow it became. Cops and Adam and Eve, lyrically, are fine. Cops, particularly, is a good message, but one that has been done in much better ways all around by other artists. However, several of the other tracks show that Nas is going through some sort of mid-life crisis. Politically, it's unfocused and basic. He used to tell elaborate complex stories with real people in them. Now, his political arguments are mostly one-liners and zingers. Is Alzheimers really his main objection to Reagan? Does he really think that conservatives would stop watching Fox News if they heard that a black guy founded it? Does conservatives even really care about J Edgar Hoover? It seems like he's trying to attack a stereotype of an old racist Republican, yet it's not even a believable one comparable to the ones that are like that. He drops a lot of isolated facts in this album, but they don't congeal into anything grander. Does this truly inspire and empower black people? Does this truly hurt white supremacists? Does this genuinely aim to persuade the public to act? Does this album truly arouse people to deeply empathize and passionately act, as its cover does? This is the kind of content that his self-titled 2008 album was ridiculed for: attacking sensationalist news with sensationalist raps. I don't find his views too extreme or abrasive. However, they're really simplistic and not conveyed in a creative way. It seems like Nas has a young adult view of politics. The point where a 19 year old is disillusioned and sees that American history and society is not the glorified version they believed as kids. Many people, especially his older listeners, are beyond that point. Am I supposed to be mindblown or provoked by something I've known for a long-while? Need I mention the maudlin projecting of his own vaccine-hoax conspiracies onto newborn babies? Do we embrace generally pseudo-intellectual content for good intent alone just because it's wrapped in lush soulful Kanye beats? Should his racial statements have any parity with the album's abandonment-fueled view of women? Life is Good, in 2012, was honest, introspective and mature. Compare "Daughters" to now, "White Label" which is a lazy one-verse freestyle with lines like "a--- gripper, blouse ripper, mouth spitter". When Kelis revealed she was actually abused by Nas, I wondered if he'd explain on that similar to what Jay-Z did on 4:44. I never asked Nas to this, but when he's rapping lines on this project about still being a player and "you only seen my baby mamas; i done outscored you on all types of women you havent even seen". It's either pure denial or wanting to project a younger image onto listeners. The album is named Nasir, but he doesn't really speak much about himself. Most of the album is just him commenting on society and other people. Since it's a very impersonal album, I don't mean any of my criticisms toward him personally. But if the point of this album is to truly provoke a honest discussion on current events and his view of society, we should have one. He seems guarded in this project. He's hiding a lot of his inner self and instead projecting an image of a civil rights activist, a womanizer and a rebel. I feel like this is the aspect of the album that robs it of the expressiveness Nas's earlier content was rife with.
Jun 17, 2018 Nas has the same problem Em has, they both havent made a truly great project since 02. Both only have a semblance of their prior wit and commentary. And they both ended up falling in love with bad production (more so Em.) I honestly didnt like this album, I thought that being produced by Kanye would give this a good chance of being his best project since stillmatic but nah. He sounds uninterested the entire time, his lyrics seem really dull and less descriptive than usual, his flow is pretty awful. This is coming from someone who puts nas in their top 3, but this album aint it. Nas has been saying pseudo intellectual s--- for a long time, there were antivax lines on stillmatic. And as for the Kelis situation, im glad he didnt address it. Im skeptical of anyone who pushes for 8k a month in child support, especially someone whos f---ing famous herself. I honestly dont believe it.
Jun 17, 2018 The problem is the album was made in less than a week. No great albums are made in a week. All these Kanye albums are just rush jobs
