"Never on schedule, but always on time"

“Can’t Forget About You”
written by KT

You know something. I like Nas.

Fairly recently, he’s been catching a lot of flack for the questionable title of his forthcoming album (I’ll refrain from typing it for my own reasons), the relative mediocrity of his last two albums (in my opinion anyway).

Still, I like Nas.

And I think most of you who read this now do, too. And even if you don’t, maybe I can convince you to give him a listen or two (just start with Illmatic). That’s why I want to take a moment to reflect on his best joint since his first joint.

There were a lot of things about Stillmatc that I – and just about everyone I knew who listened to hip-hop – liked about that album. The production value of it was very high (highlights include: “Got Ur Self A Gun,” “One Mic,” and “2nd Childhood), he obviously killed off the dude who wrote NaStradamus and came with something serious that time around and let’s be honest, after “Ether” we were wanting for this entire album to be as good as that song was.

For the most part he delivered.

I’ll be honest; there were some joints I just couldn’t rock with. The hook from “The Flyest” wasn’t very enjoyable and “Braveheart Party” was terrible, with it’s overly jerky and annoying beat underneath some boring lyrics. Still, there was a lot to appreciate about it. In particular, “Rewind” really opened my eyes and reintroduced me to the creativity he still possessed. Not only did the track Large Professor threw down on it remind me of Biggie’s “I Got A Story To Tell” (in a very good way), but to start a song from the end AND throw in lines like “The bullet goes back in the gun/The bullet hole's closin' this chest of a nigga/Now he back to square one/Screamin', "Shoot don't please.” This was the joint that proved it for me. He was back.

I think it speaks volumes of the effect that music has on you to be able to reference specific times in your life and reflect on the feeling you had listening to a particular song or album. I can tell you to have “One Mic” be the second single off of this one, was probably the best career move he’d made up to that point. People were feeling this one…seriously. There was something powerful in the song that made you want to start yelling the lyrics after the beat kicked and the tempo picked up “IF YOU REALLY THINK YOU READY TO DIE/WITH NINES OUT/THIS IS WHAT NAS IS BOUT/NIGGA THE TIME IS NOW! "

Cathartic, right?

The point here is not to suggest that Nasir somehow lost his ability, never that. Street’s Disciple and God’s Son were two good albums to follow up Stillmatic with (in all honesty, I can’t wait for the new one). I’m simply reminiscing when everyone knew how good he was. Maybe it’s a sign that our generation’s artists are becoming what our parent’s generation artists are. “Classics” and “Old School Joints of the Day” (Really? “Hypnotize?!” I remember when that came out. I saw the premiere of the video!). Yet, I’m strangely comforted in that. I want to be able to look back at hip-hop as I knew it growing up. When a lot of it was still pretty meaningful and even in the drug tales and gun toting, there was authenticity to it.

Makes you want to press rewind doesn’t it?