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Keeping up with the Joneses

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Keeping up with the Joneses M USIC New Life State of Mind: When it comes to street poetry, the future Mr. Kelis seems otherwise engaged. Keeping Up With the Joneses By Sarah Godfrey lyrics with production work by the be. Save for the brief relapse that was likes of DJ Premier, Pete Rock, and his 2001 beef with Jay-Z, the 31- Street’s Disciple Q-Tip, the album managed to trans- year-old rapper has rid himself of Nas port outsiders to an world where “all much of the venom that was once his Sony Urban/Columbia the old folks pray to Jesús,” “that trademark. He’s distanced himself o matter what brilliant per- buck that bought a bottle could’ve from the quarrels of the QB, is get- mutations may be in store for struck the lotto,” and “each block is ting married to “Milkshake” minx Npost–“Hey Ya!” hiphop, it’s like a maze/Full of black rats Kelis, and has basically left the days of hard to imagine much that could trapped” without losing one shred of drinking Moët with Medusa behind measure up to the beautiful hell that hard-core credibility. him. His latest, the 25-track, double- Nas made of mid-’90s New York. But when the industry began to disc Street’s Disciple,explores the From the suicidal tendencies of Big- shift from melancholy to celebratory adult themes of shifting priorities, gie to the Shaolin escapism of the a few years later,it seemed as if Nasir the importance of family, and the Wu-Tang Clan,the music of hiphop’s Jones couldn’t handle the change. error of one’s youthful ways. Matu- most recent golden era was rich with Other artists figured out how to suc- rity, however, seems to have come at different interpretations of what it cessfully transfer skills honed in the expense of eloquence. meant to be young, drifting, and black hard-core, making the spending of In the past, Nas assumed that lis- in the dystopia of the Rotten Apple. money sound just as good as the teners didn’t know about the strug- But of all of the fine product created, street-level quest to obtain it. But gles explored in his music. As a result, Nas’ 1994 debut, Illmatic,was the not Nas: Without Illmatic’s five-mike he tried that much harder to make best of the best. Source rating to fall back on, his them come alive. But on Disciple, it’s One of the most celebrated career probably wouldn’t have sur- as if he thinks that because everyone albums in the history of hiphop, Ill- vived all those throwaway singles and is familiar with the white-picket matic seemed less a collection of songs alter egos. fence, 2.5-kids ideal, he doesn’t have than a near-cinematic rendering of After a decade of growing pains, to explain what it really means for life in the Queensbridge projects. By though, Nas again has a solid idea of him. Other MCs have built entire pairing Nas’ grimy, hyperrealistic who he is—or at least who he wants to careers around extolling the virtues of 38 January 7, 2005 Washington City Paper 38 putting away childish things, but to bring Kelis into the studio with when Nas talks about how his entire some amount of success. “Yeah, I life has changed, his rhymes don’t think about this every day/That’s the reflect similar progress. American way,” she deadpans infec- With a clunky track and leaden tiously on the song’s seesawing hook. rhymes, “Getting Married” finds Nas “Shit.” Elsewhere, the rallying at his least evocative. Indeed, rhymes lyrics—“Who you gonna elect, Satan about riding in a limo to church and or Satan?/In the ’hood, nothin’ is watching his bride walk down the changin’”—prove that Nas has aisle are as dryly worded as an Emily indeed changed and grown, and here Post–approved wedding announce- he’s not artlessly ramming that fact ment: “Headed to the chapel, my nig- down listeners’ throats. gas laughin’, and it’s baffling/’Cause “A Message to the Feds, Sincerely, just a year ago, it’s weird though, I We the People” and “These Are Our knew I’d get married.” Nas used to Heroes” similarly provide welcome temper such sentiments with a little respite from tepid rhymes about Nas’ bit of salt, but here he’s all sugar. personal life. In fact, any song that Even that part about how “the hos puts the MC’s gilded tongue and gonna miss me” comes off as treacly. quick wit before his professed matu- Equally disappointing is “War,” rity succeeds. “Thief’s Theme,” the with its shiny, easy-listening track dark first single, samples Iron Butter- and misleading title. The song is fly’s “In-a-Gadda-da-Vida,” and is ostensibly about the fight to stay cool told mostly in the present tense— when surrounded by stress, but Nas although Nas does sneak in the fact quickly loses that theme and falls that he’s “speakin’ on my old life.” “I into more talk of the two ladies in his take summers off, ’cause I love winter life—his fiancée and his daughter. beef/Started ’87, with the shotty in the And instead of discussing how their sheep/Three-quarter-length beige, love and support help him weather dressed to kill,” he raps, finally deliv- the problems of the world, he just ering the almost obsessive level of gushes. “Got a office on Broadway, detail he’s celebrated for.“Bust a shell business in Jamaica/Tell my daugh- at the ground, pellets hit the crowd/ ter try the hardest so the best Nobody like a snitch, everybody shut schools’ll take her,”he rhymes. “And they mouth/Woolrich, Carhartt, gun- I’m late to a date with my wife, I powder stains/Smellin’ like trees, sin- realize/I stop to shop, had to get her semill’ on the brain.” some type surprise.” In these familiar surroundings— This over-the-top softheartedness haunting music and discomfiting lyri- is hard to swallow, but it’s not as bad- cal content—Nas’ growth as an artist tasting as Nas’ attempts to deliver is on full display. He’s not talking raunchy material with the holier- about improving with age, but the than-thou hindsight of a reformed quality of the material lets us know man. Even on “Remember the that he has. Also notable is “U.B.R. Times,” a kinky history of the (Unauthorized Biography of numerous notches on his bedpost, Rakim),” an homage to another Nas presents himself as a pitchman Queens native who “invented a new for the family-values set. The song sound.” The execution is a little itself is preceded by an intro in which shaky—it’s hard to squeeze some- Kelis playfully asks her man which one’s entire glorious career into a 3 woman from his past he would bed minutes and 38 seconds—but the idea one last time before their nuptials—a is so brilliant that is makes up for a setup leads into a long review of his multitude of sins. Over a sparse beat conquests over,appropriately enough, that has a steady synthesized hand a pimped-out ’70s beat. Sure, the clap as its predominant feature, Nas horn- and string-laden track is simply presents a time line of his appealing enough, but something hero’s life (“First million-dollar deal about hearing a guy extol the joys of ever in rap/18th Letter did that”), monogamy while simultaneously flip- preaching to the kiddies in a way far ping through a sexual scrapbook that preferable that of his sappy, youth- includes one woman who “used to try geared 2002 hit, “I Can.” to eat my excrement” and two who To take a break from talking “sucked juice out my urethra” just about one’s own life and views to doesn’t sit well. focus on another rapper is about as To be fair, the project isn’t this selfless as it gets in mainstream horrible throughout. It’s not as if Nas hiphop, and it’s the most enjoyable had lost his ability to deliver a power- grown-man moment on Street’s Dis- ful pun or rhyme on beat, and Disci- ciple’s whole 88 minutes. But for Nas ple’s various producers—longtime to keep his music on a pace with the collaborators L.E.S., Salaam Remi, strides he’s made on the personal and Chucky Thompson, plus a couple front, he might do well to take a of guests—pull some appropriately good, hard look at himself. He’s got old-school samples from the crates: to study his own impeccable sense of George Clinton, Lyn Collins, Barry scene in order to make his family White. Nas also has plenty of pent- portraiture as interesting as the tales up political rage that he’s all too of victims-cum-criminals that he happy to unleash, dropping bombs on once spun. No one should begrudge everyone from the black actors of WB Nas the settled-down life. But until and UPN sitcoms to, of course, he can figure out how to get the joy George W.Bush. he’s obviously experiencing to jump On the Q-Tip-produced tirade off a record, no one should really be “American Way,” Nas even manages listening to him, either. CP Washington City Paper January 7, 2005 39 39 M USIC Incorrect Change Chart-topping single “Candy By Sarah Godfrey Money Shot: Shop” is more predictable, sugary The Massacre 50 aims low.
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