Nas “Untitled” Review

It is often difficult to gain a balanced perspective on an album after reading a single summary of the music. Bias can tilt the review – as can personal taste, history and just about everything else that is unique to the person writing it. So in an effort to offer an expanded perspective on the music here are four three reactions, four three impressions, Four Three Takes on Nas’ Untitled.

Despite years of mediocre, uneven albums, pretentious attention-grabbing schemes, rhymes full of pseudo-intellectual gobbledygook and a self-righteous streak that would make Bill O’Reilly blush, Nas is still one of the greatest emcees ever. How does he pull this off? Yeah, Illmatic was a near-perfect hip hop album, but shouldn’t we have had enough of this guy by now? Apparently not. Untitled is actually one of Nasâ’ better albums – occasionally brilliant, but still suffering from the inconsistency that has plagued his last few projects. In terms of production, the last three Nas albums have all followed an unfortunate formula: a banger or two, a couple of really great, lush, jazzy tracks, and a whole lot of synthed-out amateurish bullshit. On Untitled, Nas sounds perfect over “Fried Chicken” and “Project Roach,” and a few of the other beats are palatable, but overall the production is forgettable. As an emcee, however, Nas brought bars to this one. He sounds fired up, particularly on his anti-big media song “Sly Fox” and all-purpose political song “America.” Nas only occasionally ventures out of “things sure are fucked up” lyrical territory, but he drops enough jewels to make Untitled a worthy entry into his catalog. [Kyle "Guante" Myhre]

Queensbridge finest, street narrator Nasir Jones returns for his ninth studio album. After recording the classic Illmatic, his 1994 debut Nas has often had difficulty maintaining his status among raps elite and delivering commercially successful records. As mainstream hip hop radio has never been a big Nas fan, he has managed to have a few qualified radio burners, and quite an arsenal of street sweepers. Despite that, Nas has had four number one Billboard Album debuts. In 2006 he stunned most of the hip-hop community by signing with arch rival Jay-Z at Def Jam, releasing Hip Hip Is Dead. On the controversial follow-up Untitled (formerly The N‘word) Nas attempts to debunk/flip/ or simply let you into his frame of thinking the infamous N‘word, it’s meaning, and how blacks remix the word and celebrate with it. Opening the record Nas addresses haters with the stark “Queens Get The Money” with the eerily minimal abstract production of Jay Electronica, where Nas quotes himself before adding “I’m over their head like bulimic on a seesaw”… my queen use her milkshake to bring you my yard, …I’m like Huey P and Emmit. Wowzer. Nas find the balance between a pop banger and dropping jewels on the Keri Hilton assisted “Hero” he offers himself “The people need someone to believe in, I guess that make me a hero”. On the lever “N.I.G.G.E.R (The Slave & The Master) Nas proclaims “We trust no black leaders, I’m from the ghetto where black woman talk about their sugar levels”… this history don’t acknowledge us”. This from the same guy who says “I Love America’ on “Black President”. Nas jumps on the MF Doom and RZA sampled track “Ya Can’t Stop Us” as Nas laughingly ponders, “Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag, bet she has a nigger help her old ass”. Ouch. For his political observations the Bill O’Riley taunt “Sly Fox” works best and to a lesser degree does “America” and “Testify”. I’m still confused by the metaphorical approaches on the Mark Ronson produced “Fried Chicken” featuring Busta Rhymes and “Project Roach”. And then there’s the go for radio joints thats misfires, like “Breathe” and “Make The World Go Round” ft. Game & Chris Brown that don’t really work yet these are the possible pop jump-offs. There’s an excellent UK bonus track ” Like Me” where Esco plays therapist as he advises a young female. Often critics complain for a lack of consistency, Nas is indeed a beautiful mess of contradictions. It’s a nice, if schizophrenic comeback after the shaky but cool Hip-Hop Is Dead, he brings back the hungry visuals we thirst for from one the hip-hop most conflicted authors as most great revolutionaries are. [review by guest contributor Jon Jon Scott]

As with every Nas record the question always first on everyone’s mind is “Is it as good as Illmatic?” The answer is always no. One of the downsides of debuting with one of the greatest rap albums of all time is at makes it very hard to ever again live up to the hype. Such is the case with the latest installment, Untitled, which until recently went by the controversial title Nigger. The controversy doesn’t end there. As usual Nasty Nas takes some pretty combative positions—”Breathe” is a classic anti-police, pro-Louis Farrakhan polemic that Public Enemy first made famous. Luckily though, the lyrics go much further down the rabbit hole in other tracks, in which Nas examines Barak Obama’s position as a presidential candidate (“Black President”) News Corp.’s political ties (“Sly Fox”) and racism, oppression, and social injustice (“We’re Not Alone’). The lyrics, the issues, the political stances—as usual Nas demonstrates that he is one of America’s most fearless rappers. So maybe I would have liked him to bring in Pete Rock again to do some of the production—but that’s just a personal preference. Though maybe he hasn’t captured the awesome heights of his debut, this is still a pretty damn good effort, considering. My final thoughts? “Queens Get the Money” is one of my favorite tracks of the year. And Bill O’Reilly is still a chump. [Jon Behm]