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Illmatic Praise for the series: It was only a matter of time before a clever publisher realized that there is an audience for whom Exile on Main Street or Electric Ladyland are as significant and worthy of study as The Catcher in the Rye or Middlemarch…. The series …is freewheeling and eclectic, ranging from minute rock-geek analysis to idiosyncratic personal celebration—The New York Times Book Review Ideal for the rock geek who thinks liner notes just aren’t enough—Rolling Stone One of the coolest publishing imprints on the planet—Bookslut These are for the insane collectors out there who appreciate fantastic design, well-executed thinking, and things that make your house look cool. Each volume in this series takes a seminal album and breaks it down in startling minutiae. We love these. We are huge nerds—Vice A brilliant series…each one a work of real love—NME (UK) Passionate, obsessive, and smart—Nylon Religious tracts for the rock ‘n’ roll faithful—Boldtype 2 [A] consistently excellent series—Uncut (UK) We …aren’t naive enough to think that we’re your only source for reading about music (but if we had our way …watch out). For those of you who really like to know everything there is to know about an album, you’d do well to check out Continuum’s “33 1/3” series of books—Pitchfork For reviews of individual titles in the series, please visit our website at www.continuumbooks.com and 33third.blogspot.com 3 For more information on the 33 1/3 series, visit 33third.blogspot.com. For a complete list of books in the series, see the back of this book. 4 Illmatic Matthew Gasteier 5 2009 The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc 80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038 The Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX www.continuumbooks.com 33third.blogspot.com Copyright © 2009 by Matthew Gasteier All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other wise, without the written permission of the publishers or their agents. Printed in Canada on 100% postconsumer waste recycled paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gasteier, Matthew. Illmatic/by Matthew Gasteier. p. cm. - (33 1/3) 6 eISBN-13: 978-1-4411-6336-3 1. Nas (Musician). Illmatic. 2. Nas (Musician) 3. Rap (Music)--History and criticism. I. Title. ML420.N344G37 2009 782.421649092--dc22 2008055441 7 “One ever feels his twoness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” W.E.B. DuBois “The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” F. Scott Fitzgerald 8 Table of Contents Acknowledgments Black/White 1. Endings/Beginnings 2. Youth/Experience 3. Death/Survival 4. Individual/Community 5. Fantasy/Reality 6. Faith/Despair 7. Tradition/Revolution 8. Breaks/Flows Gift/Curse 9 Acknowledgments On a basic and apparent level, this book would not have been written without Nas, in my humble opinion the greatest emcee of all time. I owe him thanks not just for Illmatic, but for a career that continues to challenge and entertain. Huge thanks have to go to DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Q-Tip, AZ, and their respective managers, and a particularly strong thank you to MC Serch, who patiently and graciously dealt out his finest wisdom. This book owes a huge debt of gratitude to Adrian Covert and Etan Rosenbloom, who encouraged me when I was on the right track and steered me back when I wasn’t. Thanks also to editor David Barker, who believed I could write the book I wanted to write, and Dave Park and Brandon Wall at Prefix, who gave me the freedom and support I needed to get to the point where I was. Finally, thank you to Audrey, my co-writer and best friend, who walked me through my ideas, talked me down from the ledge, and guided me towards an infinitely better book. This book is for Jeffrey, with whom I would have had a lot to talk about. 10 Introduction Black/White I am white. Over a decade ago, when I began to listen to hip hop—really listen, outside of popular social contexts that the music had already seeped into across white America—this mattered. As a teenager in a predominantly white environment, there were two sides of the pop divide: rock and hip hop. Kids defined themselves by the music they listen to (still do), and even more so, outsiders defined them as well. Listening to hip hop was essentially associating oneself with the black community, How could I pretend that my life paralleled the lives depicted in this music? I didn’t yet know Rakim’s famous line “it’s not where you’re from, it’s where you’re at,” which would become a battle cry of sorts for any hip hop head who didn’t have the stereotypical “black American experience.” But it wasn’t any sense of personal evolution that prompted my expanded musical palate other than the simple freedom that comes with not allowing the music you listen to, the movies you watch, and the art you consume to define you. Music stopped being about the image and the lifestyle—the social ceased to have priority over the personal. It was no coincidence that I didn’t really love music until I began to love hip hop: the same barriers had been holding me back. Now, a decade later, things are very different. I wasn’t the only one that figured out that you can listen to hip hop without belonging to the hip hop culture, and as the genre has continued to “dominate popular music, anyone interested in 11 the social climate of America ignores hip hop at their own peril. Articles in The Source have evolved into articles in The New Yorker have evolved into articles in National Geographic. However naively, it is no longer important as a hip hop listener to identify yourself as white. Hip hop, created primarily by black Americans, evolved from black American music, is no longer Black music. It is American music. This is, of course, far from uncharted territory. Since the dawn of recorded music—and before—music made by black Americans has made its way slowly but surely into mainstream America. Jazz, swing, rhythm and blues, and finally rock and roll were all co-opted by the parallel culture. Though the path of these genres was not as, well, black and white as traditional history would imply (Big Mama Thornton may have recorded “Hound Dog” before Elvis, but it was written by a couple of Jewish kids), the oppression of black artists because of the need for a paler face behind the music is undeniable. The difference between these earlier trends and hip hop’s new path is that the newer art form was the first major post-civil rights musical jump to emerge from a black community. Right as hip hop was ready for primetime, with the release of 1984’s Run DMC, MTV started playing videos by black artists and stretching out from their rock-exclusive ethos. Since that major shift, black artists don’t have to worry as much about finding an outlet for their work, and therefore white artists have had little opportunity to step in and fill a void. 12 The audience for hip hop now looks like America (and I have never bought the decades-long assumption that the genre is primarily consumed by white suburban youths) 1 but the face of hip hop remains very much a black one. Now the debate has shifted from what it means as a white American to listen to hip hop to what it means to engage in hip hop culture, to take an active role in performing, promoting, and—where I come in—critiquing the genre. As hip hop moves slowly up the chain of respectability, hip hop writers have gained a higher level of exposure. With such exposure comes a degree of cultural power which, whether the writer is white or black, must be constantly examined. The intellectualization of art can have a dangerous impact on artistic intent when it is presented to the consuming public. Greater exposure to an audience that doesn’t know where to begin means a generation of writers is setting the agenda for hip hop; they are the ambassadors of the culture. For white writers, this is even more important, because—assimilated or not—hip hop culture is and always will be a product and a reflection of black America. What does it mean to represent and evaluate a culture to which you do not belong? Perhaps the greatest irony of this conversation is that critics and writers have (almost) always been removed from the works that they covered. In Cameron Crowe’s fictionalized memoir Almost Famous (which was originally titled The Uncool), the legendary rock critic Lester Bangs, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, tells the protagonist to beware of making friends with the bands. “They make you feel cool,” he tells his protegée, “and hey, I met you, you are not cool.” There has always been a separation between the artist and the 13 audience that is more than just a stage or a television screen, a certain hierarchy that has birthed rock stars and fan clubs alike.

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