Nas – Page 4 – Grown Up Rap

Album Review: Ghostface Killah’s 36 Seasons

While everyone else was talking about the Wu-Tang Clan reunion album, the most talented member of the group modestly announced that his latest solo record would be dropping exactly one week after A Better Tomorrow.

36 Seasons is Ghostface Killah’s eleventh album, and its another decent addition to an almost impeccable back catalog (the less said about Ghostdini: Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City the better).

Most GFK albums have some sort of loose story arc, but this one is billed as being a full-on concept album. In reality, the concept is pretty close to the same one on every other joint since his classic debut, Ironman, but this is no bad thing.

Similar to the 2013 Adrian Younge-assisted Twelve Reasons to Die, the music is something of a departure for Ghost, with different beats to what we are perhaps used to. Production is handled primarily by The Revelations, with some tracks nothing more than soulful interludes from the street drama happening in the narrative. Nice idea but hardly new, and after a while most of the beats start to sound the same. Intriguingly, Blood on the Streets is co-produced by The 45 King, marking a welcome return for one of the most iconic names in the game.

Surprisingly, and breaking tradition from other Wu solo albums, 36 Seasons doesn’t feature a single member of the Clan. Instead, AZ appears on five tracks, and veteran Kool G Rap features on three. The story behind how the album came about is unclear, but both are odd choices for this many features.

He may be one of the best to ever bless the mic, but G Rap’s heyday was a long time ago, and he’s lost the energy and flair of his many classics. AZ meanwhile has always been an underachiever at best, never quite living up to the promise of Illmatic. Both put in credible performances here, but we’ll take a Ghost and Rae collabo over AZ or G Rap all day long.

The poetry album aside, Ghostface has yet to make a bad album, but hasn’t made a truly great one since Apollo Kids. 36 Seasons won’t go down as one of his best, but an average GFK album is still miles ahead of most other artists, and its definitely a lot better than the long-awaited but lackluster new Wu joint.

36 Seasons is out everywhere, December 9.

Listen to a new PRhyme track from Primo and Royce Da 5’9″

Its been a good few weeks for us DJ Premier heads. A crazy interview with Snoop Dogg, where he dropped teasers about that future Nas album, new music from M.O.P. coming soon, and of course, PRhyme, his latest collaboration with Royce Da 5’9″.

We’ve had some clips of the music already, but now we’ve been blessed with the title track too. Primo is assisted on the beat with samples by Adrian Young, who adds some extra little flourishes to the mix.

It’s another impressive sign of the quality that is no doubt set to come when the album is fully released next month. Listen to the new track here, courtesy of our friends at the always-entertaining EgoTripland.

PRhyme is already available for pre-order in some areas. Look out for our review when it drops.

Why we miss the classic hip-hop breakdown

Hip-hop production has changed and evolved many times since the late 80s, swaying back and forth between old styles and futuristic ones.

The basics don’t change much though, with most tracks roughly sticking to the classic structure of the first two golden eras: Short into with ad-libs, or cuts and scratches. Verse 1, hook. Verse 2, hook. Verse 3, hook. More hook, shout outs, extended cuts and scratches. Fade out.

We are know it well, not just from hip-hop but also most other popular music genres. Classic rap tracks sometimes had an extra special treat though, between the second hook and the start of verse 3. It was known as a breakdown, and we miss them like crazy.

A breakdown tended to include extra cutting and scratches, variations on the beat, extended use of the main samples, and various other types of niceness.

They provided a chance for the listener to pause for reflection, to take in the meaning of the first two verses, and get ready for the third, which was often the most powerful. They also gave the producer time to showcase their abilities, and flex their cutting skills if they also happened to be a deejay.

We’re not necessarily saying we need them back, and in fact producers like DJ Premier and Pete Rock still tend to produce beats in this way. Other modern hip-hop tracks still have them too.

Lest we forget how fucking dope they were though, so here’s a few of our personal favorites. The breakdowns all appear after the first couple of verses.

Nas, The World Is Yours. Produced by Pete Rock.

Lords of the Underground, What I’m After. Produced by K-Def.

LL Cool J, Mama Said Knock You Out. Produced by Marley Marl.

Nas previews new J Dilla track at Run the Jewels press event

Just when we thought the hype around Run the Jewels 2 couldn’t get any hyper, a special press conference in New York City last night took the situation into overdrive. El-P and Killer Mike were joined on stage by none other than Nas, who seems to be taking his role as Mass Appeal boss seriously.

The legend gave some supportive words to the label’s hottest act, before then giving us all one hell of a treat: a preview of a track from his next album. New music from Nas is always exciting, but when it turns out the track uses a J Dilla beat, that excitement reaches a whole new plain.

Rabid Dilla Dawg fans will instantly recognize the beat as Gobstopper from Donuts. To now have Nas drop vocals over it is an incredible look.

Watch the full video below, and check out our review of the incredible RTJ2.

Run the Jewels 2 is out now on Mass Appeal.

Listen to a Time is Illmatic mix from Pete Rock

Time is Illmatic is showing in cinemas around the world right now, and to celebrate, Pete Rock has blessed up with a new Nas mixtape.

As the producer of one of the classic album’s finest tracks (The World is Yours), there’s few people more qualified than Pete, and he does a fine job reminding us of just how groundbreaking Illmatic was. Not that we’d forgotten of course.

Check below for the full stream, and see here for our review of the Time is Illmatic documentary.

Visit the Time is Illmatic website to find out if the film is showing in your town. It is also available from iTunes in some regions.

Watch: Snoop Dogg interviewing DJ Premier

Snoop Dogg’s online TV show is usually too smoked out and crazy for us, but on the latest episode his guest is the one and only DJ Premier. It starts off with Snoop paying homage to the early Gang Starr records, before Primo moves on to talk about PRhyme, his new project with Royce Da 5’9″.

Also up for discussion is the tracks they have collaborated on together. It’s easy to think of Primo as a producer who only works with boom-bap artists from New York, but he’s mixed it up with Snoop, MC Eight and plenty of other West Coast rappers over the years.

Premier also drops in a little teaser about that long-awaited Nas collaboration, which hopefully will see the light of day at some point after Nas finishes his duties with Def Jam. Amazingly, Snoop claims not to have known that Primo has worked with Nas since Illmatic, but that may have just been the weed talking. Watch the full clip below.

The PRhyme album is set to be released in the next few weeks.

Time is Illmatic: Documenting Hip-hop the correct way

For those of us 30 and over, the first thing that hits you when you realize Illmatic came out 20 years ago is how it makes you feel old as shit. There are millions of rap fans around the world who weren’t even born in 1994, and they almost definitely wont be familiar with the Wild Style clips that start the album off.

The second thing that hits you is just how much hip-hop has changed in those 20 years, mostly for the good. It’s a genre still much maligned and misunderstood by the masses, but its also finally now at a point where it is legitimately recognized for its cultural impact and long history. And where there is history, there are always people ready to capture and preserve it. That’s why, in the years since Illmatic dropped, a small but incredible collection of documentary films have been made about hip-hop.

To be clear on our definitions, when we say hip-hop documentary, we aren’t talking about promotional tie-in DVDs like Backstage, or extended video/live flicks like Streets is Watching or Up in Smoke.

We mean well-crafted cinematic productions that get the attention of respected critics and film festival judges. Films like Scratch (Doug Pray, 2002), Michael Rapaport’s Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest (2012), My Vinyl Weighs a Ton: This is Stones Throw Records (Jeff Broadway, 2014), and The Wonder Year and The Hip-Hop Fellow (Kenneth Price, 2011, 2014), both of which document the work of 9th Wonder. Each tells the story of hip-hop culture in a way that not only appeals to the true fan, but also makes the stories accessible to those from outside of the movement.

The latest documentary in this category to hit screens is Time is Illmatic, released to coincide with the album’s 20th anniversary. For those in the know, 1994 was slap-bang in the middle of the 2nd golden era of hip-hop, a time when quality material was being released by a huge selection of artists. But it was also a time when New York was in crisis, at the tail-end of the crack epidemic, and with murder rates among young black males way too high.

Time is Illmatic is less then about the music, and more about the social, economic and political climate of Queensbridge and every other ghetto at the time. It covers at length the break-up of Nas’ parents, and the effect it had on both Nas and his brother (Bravehearts rapper Jungle).

The tragic death of Ill Will is also a main theme. Anyone familiar with Nas’ music since Illmatic knows how frequently Will’s name appears, but here the true impact of his death is finally made clear. There are points where Nas struggles to re-live the pain of the story, and a poignant moment where Jungle questions his mother for not having moved them away from Queensbridge the moment one of her sons best friends was shot dead.

From a cinematic perspective, its a well-written and directed piece of film making, respectful of the culture, while never shying away from it’s many contradictions and problems.

For historians of the music itself, there are some interesting snippets of detail about how the album came together, with interviews from MC Serch, Large Professor, Pete Rock, DJ Premier and Q-Tip. There’s even a section on the infamous Bridge Wars, highlighting how significant the battle was for those who came from Queens and the Bronx.

It makes for a worthy addition to the cannon of other impressive hip-hop documentary films, and does well to capture a moment in history that effected the lives of so many people around the world.

Time is Illmatic is out now. Check the website for screenings.