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I like Nas, but nobody has had more chances to live up to their potential and flounder it away with varying gimmicks that didn't work.

Honestly Nas had the world at his feet after his first album. Tried to create a Version 2.0 with his second album and just ended up creating a weaker album. He just gradually went downhill after.

Proceeded to follow Jay-Z into the materialistic rap persona despite not having any of the wealth or celebrity credibility Jay had that would make one a plausible 'bling bling' era rapper.

He was dissed by 2Pac, then instead of doing anything about it, sucked up to him, and said he was honoured to have been mentioned. It would have been a bold move, and possibly a career defining one to fire back at Pac especially as Nas was actually a better MC. He missed this opportunity instead got into a childish tit for tat with Jay-Z.

Nas' ex brought all the boys to the yard, probably for orgies and that's why they divorced.

He proclaimed hip-hop was dead in 2006 and nothing screams hip hop is dead more so than having Will.I.AM on your title track. The irony.
Nas also proclaims this despite himself failing to do much for hip hop despite several attempts in the 12 years between his debut and his proclamation.

Nowadays, he's simply irrelevant.

As for Public Enemy, as JWB said it's just Chuck D shouting tired and cliched 'black power' lines whilst Flava Flav repeats 'hey chuck I don't think they heard you' and they add in a 'Terminator X' adlib. Unless you're an oppressed black man in the 80's, which nobody here is, I don't see how their music is more relatable than say, Drake's

John Wilkes Booth

ether is better my ass. ether is a better song, true. nas is a better rapper, true. but ether as a diss track wasn't all it's cracked up to be. it was a bunch of gay jokes with a few personals thrown in here and there. really everyone was just excited to see nas on it again. really nas should thank jay-z for saving his career just like he said in the song cause he was fading out before jay dissed him. but what jay wrote about nas is spot on and accurate and personal in both takeover and blueprint 2. that is why i outsourced the job to him cause honestly anyone who was paying attention at that point knows he bodied nas on that track but nas won the beef cause that track came out too late and everyone had already moved on. but he describes nas's career pretty precisely.

the dude came in with an amazing album, started going a lil gangsta with it, and then just flopped. he's the prime example of wasted talent. he is probably the best at spitting a sick verse at the right time (usually on someone else's track lol) but he also makes a bunch of unlistenable **** trying to be on some black righteous wisdom **** which is honestly retarded as hell. i mean he's the kind of fake intellectual that liberals will latch on to when he's sitting up here talking about the egyptian kingdom was black and "if he ruled the world" everyone would have nikes. and every album he's been making lately has to have some cheap gimmick attached to it that ruins the album. plus his mustache is goofy as hell.

John Wilkes Booth

oh man that's a good one. next you're gonna tell me that you can't spell crap without rap.

Frownland

So what's this one good album from Nas everyone's talking about?

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Cuthbert

Great thread btw.

Agree with this always thought it was a bit weird he was like that with 2Pac.

John Wilkes Booth

speaking of which:

jay-z is a very talented biggie impersonator. he raps about how much money he has and how he made it through drug sales (very original) and he looks up to scarface the movie (also very original).it seems that this really is all jay knows about is money and drugs so that's all he talks about, money and drugs. and women occasionally. which can get kind of boring. he's not really willing to go anywhere crazy cause at the end of the day he's a businessman and will follow the current trends in music whatever they might be. he did try to pretend to resist modernity with his death of the autotune but then he had rihanna wailing on every other track and all his beats sounding like some weird techo ****. jay-z really is the ghost of biggie taking revenge on the listening populace for letting him get shot over some ****ing hip hop.

Goofle

I'm confused for a different reason, Stillmatic isn't his debut.

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John Wilkes Booth

if you honestly think stillmatic is better than illmatic you should jump off a bridge.

Goofle

Badman ting.

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John Wilkes Booth

lol seriously though illmatic is almost the perfect hip hop album i don't understand how a underground head like you would rate stillmatic higher