Illmatic blows everything else he did out of the water, as clichéd a view as that is.
No other album combined the raw lyrical feeling, storytelling, expert production and youthful aggression like Illmatic.
Back on Illmatic, Nas was a much more focused artist. It was all about making the best record possible, which he did.
Fast forward 7 years and Nas wasn't so much about trying to make quality records as he was trying to create a more crossover sound in the hopes of catching up with Jigga's popularity or just taking shots at him.
If he'd kept the same focus and integrity he had when he was 19, imagine what he could have created. Instead he got involved in tit-for-tat with Jay-Z and his uncertainty with which direction he wanted to go in and what he wanted to do as an artist lead to his inconsistent discography.
There was no need for him to release two albums in 99 for example. And the quality of Nastradamus shows he had lost direction as an artist. It looked like he wanted to cross over into the mainstream like a lot of other artists at the time(bling bling era) had, but he never fully committed to running with that direction, so just got lost in the shuffle.
Stillmatic was certainly a return to form of sorts, but it can't stand up to Illmatic in a million years. The point of the album, in my view was to prove he was the same artist who dropped Illmatic. The clue's in the title. But he's never been able to replicate his earlier success. It Was Written's his second best record in my opinion.
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