When you are looking for a Nas album, you certainly know that you can’t expect it to be an “Illmatic,” a critically acclaimed hip-hop album that ranks as one of the best ever, especially at such an early age when Nas put it out. However, you can still expect his new album to be good, and therefore, rather than judging it based on “Nastradamus,” you can judge the new one compared to the likes of “God’s Son” and “Stillmatic,” both of which were very good albums.
In Nas’ new album, “Street’s Disciple,” Nas puts together a double disc in which he brings social commentary and criticizes the lack of voting among African-Americans, mainstream hip-hop, conventions expected of African-Americans and materialism.
In addition, he attempts to bridge the gap between generations with a novel concept of blues performed by his dad, mixed with excellent hip-hop lyrics to put together a dynamite song in “Bridging the Gap” dedicates a song in “Just A Moment” as a remembrance song for those who died, and dedicates a wonderful, touching song to his daughter in “Me & You.”
He speaks about life in the ghetto, the hard times he went through, the struggle between black people and that people should love each other rather than fight one another. He brings forth a novel concept in the self-titled song “Street’s Disciple,” which is about him being the urban prophecy and raps about scriptures and survival in the streets.
Nas puts together a wonderfully collaborated album, but experiences the problems of double discs that many artists have experienced. There are too many filler tracks on the second disc, and Nas should’ve combined tracks in disc 2 and put them in the first disc, eliminating the lackluster tracks on the album (this includes “Virgo”).
However, despite a few bad tracks on the second disc, there are excellent tracks on both discs. My personal favorites are “Bridging the Gap,” “Street’s Disciple,” “Just a Moment (featuring Quan),” “Me & You,” “American Way” and “These Are Our Heroes,” a song that criticizes Kobe Bryant and Taye Diggs, and expected conventions of African-Americans from mainstream society.
“American Way (featuring Kelis)” is another song that places the emphasis on voting, and he criticizes people for complaining about the problems of society and not getting out the vote to do something about it.
He also criticizes the complacent attitude of citizens and the lack of social and political conscious among the American people, that people buy into it for the sake of trend, not to promote awareness.
In today’s era, where there are no longer socially or politically conscious lyrics from rappers today, Nas’ “Street’s Disciple” stands out as one of the best hip-hop albums of 2005, despite the flaws that the double discs present. If you look past the few bad tracks on disc two, the good tracks display Nas’ evolution as an artist.
He still brings forth his old gangsta image, but he uses it to express social and political concerns, rather than emphasize empty materialism as many rappers do.
This tends to happen as rappers get older and when they experience a lot of success. Nas has been down this path before, and it has resulted in the worst albums ever in “Nastradamus,” a universal symbol of when good artists go bad.
When Nas was called out by Jay-Z in the song called”The Take-Over.” Jay-Z said that Nas was a shadow of his former self, was not staying true to the game and was losing the instant credibility he had built in the streets of New York. Thus, Nas responded and came back.
Thanks to Jay-Z, Nas has revived and has stepped up his game even further. Nas has now evolved into one of the best lyricists.
“Street’s Disciple” is an early candidate for best album of the year, and it is one of the better albums in recent memory.
