Kingmatic.
COVID-19 has crippled 2020 as the coronavirus still has ahold of our year. With cinemas closed and NBA games bubbled in quarantine, many artists are taking it back to locking themselves down in the studio. And 'Illmatic' rap legend Nas who is 'Stillmatic' with it has a 'King's Disease' like Laker LeBron James watching the throne like former rival Jay-Z. The G.O.A.T. who used to, "take Summers off because (he) loves winter beef" is back in this scorching season like '10 Points', as he scores like Mike from the free throw line with everyone holding up double digit cards. "King/Michael Jordan gives back and you didn't know it/Like LeBron does but it's just seldom they show it." The man who "started saying "Peace King" on (his) song 'The Flyest'" is back to write a book on his life...and do you think anyone will read it?! No f###### doubt! Loved like the great Malik Sealy, the one the players hate dearly is here for us in a time where life really is a bitch...but they're AZ's lines right?! More on that later. Its been a minute since we got a long play from Nas. Two years back he released the classic 'Nasir' in a seven track album series produced by Kanye West in an album of its times that still resonate now like the call to arms protest of, 'Cops Shot The Kid'. All from the voice of a generation we need right now in the Black Lives Matter movement as much as we need to arrest the cops that killed Breonna Taylor. Last year Nas also reeled off his long awaited 'The Lost Tapes 2' sequel. But if we're talking full length like a 'Live At The BBQ' verse it's been a long time since 2012's, 'Life Is Good'.
New York, New York, 'The Don' Nastradamus returns like it was all written in a new decade no one could have seen coming. He pays rest in peace respect to a man he once dissed in the late Laker great Kobe, aswell as the Los Angeles rapper who followed his inspirational take on the hip-hop genre like Tupac in Nipsey Hussle on 'The Cure' of an album that has so much to unpack like it's religious album artwork for a man who used to portrait his streets and the shelves with pictures of himself as a kid or Tutankhamen. The 'Streets Disciple' and 'God Son' is needed more than ever right now like when hip hop was dead. Because this resurrection is the King and disease or not, that will never be untitled like the album he tried to call the N word with attitude to make a social statement that matters like the back of NBA players jerseys right now. The crown is his too even on a Friday were we get new music from the heartland Vegas city sinners of The Killers for the 'Imploding The Mirage' record. Not to mention a new YouTube record breaking 'Dynamite' single from South Korean pop juggernaut BTS and a groundbreaking music video from 'Entrepreneur' Pharrell celebrating Black excellence featuring the man who was making 'Dead Presidents' back in the day with Nasir, Mr. Shawn Carter. Cue the, "is that everybody", "you wanted more" Doctor Strange and Wong, 'Avengers: Endgame' meme. But once the big beat of the opening title track comes into play we know whose going to be on repeat all the way until the same next week he knocks his opponents into. "I made the fade famous, the chain famous/QB on my chest match the stainless/Amazing Grace, I'm gracefully aging/Without masonry, I made more paper to play with/No rap in my playlist, sold dimes on my day shift (King)/So, can I breathe? Can I walk? Can I speak? Can I talk?/Can I floss without you wanting me outlined in chalk?" Can I live? Police and racist white America take note. This is one raised fist you can't unclench.
Lucky 13 for Mr. Jones. The big hitting Hit Boy production keeps knocking like these guys were rolling dice with Brandon Flowers in Sam's Town this weekend. 'Blue Benz' will have you top down riding on repeat, circling the block, it's so hot. Whilst 'Car #85' with Snoop Dogg's go-to soul chorus legend like crushed velvet, Uncle Charlie Wilson washes as one of the freshest things Nas has ever recorded. Hit Boy even makes a feature for the record on 'Ultra Black', rapping "We goin' ultra black/Raiders, Oakland hat, I smoke to that/Pre-rolls and 'gnac, what's the results to that?/C-notes and bags (Uh)/She knows I'm classy like I'm Billy Dee Williams/(Smooth)", landing like Lando in this solo star like Gambino's millennium falcon. It gets even hotter on' 27 Summers' like Jay-Z writing a letter to that season in retirement on Memphis Bleek's '534' for a record that will hopefully make the Rocafella giant dust off his mic and it can all be Ali and Frazier, Lakers and Celtics again for these Black Republicans taking over the government. Big guns in the form of Big Sean and Don Toliver are brought out on 'Replace Me', Brucie B on 'The Definition' and the amazing Anderson Paak on 'All Bad' that is all good. Showing Nas has been keeping his ear to the street and the times a'changin' as raps Dylan worked on his great American book of rhymes. But it's the soulful sample of 'Til The War Is Won' featuring Lil Durk that is the most inspiring and influential streaming stroke from the iconic artist in calendars. As the 'Daughters' poet illustrates everything from his fallout with Kelis to the community as a whole saying, "Let's see where the black family at/We need each other, with bad tempers, we defeat each other/Single mothers, my heart's bleeding for you/These coward men, that were beating on you (Never me)/Let's silence them, with a silencer/For the violence of relationships/Hold your head up, don't take that shit, run away from it/I shoulda ran away myself, the amount of pain I was dealt/And I'm a man, my job is to help." Say no more. This says it all. Still on an album of big moves and collabos like the A$AP Rocky and Fivio Foreign, 'Spicy' bonus, our Firm favourite concerns the fiasco of another reunion we hope leads to another comeback album in collaboration...even if the good doctor says the first one was a flop. Once everything comes 'Full Circle' with what we said was coming in AZ and Cormega you really know what's on the way for a pivotal hip-hop moment. The second Foxy Brown breaths on the mic you know it's on like an old Lil' Kim beef for all you Nicki and Cardi's. And just wait until you hear who comes after. Moments like this are what make hip-hop and now Nas is coming we hope this one lasts forever. Tap your phones because the God M.C. has answered the call. King back, cutting a hell of a deal, this is one disease were we don't want the cure. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Playlist Picks: 'Blue Benz', 'Til The War Is Won (Feat. Lil' Durk), 'Full Circle (Feat. The Firm)'.
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