Review of Nas Album "Untitled"

I am going to start this review by saying I am a big Nas fan. I am in the camp of thought that puts Illmatic before any other album in hip hop history, so yes I am bias. With that out the way, I will say this bias works in the favor of critiquing Nas albums because honestly nobody in music has had a bigger first album to live up to since Alanis Morisette (hell yeah I pulled that out); so it makes one very critical of his releases. He has never (with the exception of Stillmatic maybe) released another album that deserves the title of “classic”. Well he never had until he dropped his last album Untitled and again pushed the bounds of the art of rapping.

The CD begins with a lone piano-sampled introduction song that puts the lyrics to the forefront, Nas states,

“Bring back Arsenio
Hip-hop was aborted
So Nas breathes life, back into the embryo
Let us make man in our image
Spit it, I'm Huey P in Louis V at the eulogy throwing Molotov for Emmit”

Not even commenting on the sick abortion couplet he just spit; did he just say he’s a combination of a Black nationalist and white capitalism throwing Molotov cocktails? Why yes Nas did ya’ll, it gets even weirder from there.

Nas spends the next three songs bragging about his riches in a way that might make Lil Wayne gasp, but doing it in a way that is also effortlessly more elitist and intelligent. He even does a song with Chris Brown, which leaves me wondering does Chris Brown even know about Illmatic? But, inside Nas’ bragging of his riches, his wife, and his life he plants seeds of the revolutionary speak to come. Some might see these songs as attempts to grab the ear of mainstream America but any Nas fan knows that he long ago gave up giving a hoot about popular music. That is Jay Z’s main worry, but for Nas there is something deeper here.

The track that changes the tone of the album is the lead single “Hero” where he raps the chorus,

“Chain gleaming
Switching lanes
Two-seating
Hate him or love him
For the same reason
Can't leave it
The games needs him
Plus the people need someone to believe in
So in God's Son we trust
'Cause they know I'm gonna give 'em what they want
They looking for... a hero
I guess that makes me... a hero”

Again we see this combination of materialism and messiah-esque language. If that is what a revolutionary hero looks like, then never before has one looked like this. On the sobering track “America” he begins by speaking of his accomplishments with a somber tone and as the verses go on he critiques everything from the lack of Black leaders in fields outside of popular culture to the abuse of women in this country. The next three tracks are direct calls to his listeners to stop being lazy listeners, be critical of the media, and truly get up and be down for the cause of equality. The message for the album comes from the title track “Untitled” where he spits the second verse,

“Some revolutionaries do live long
Am I one of them? Guess we'll know in due time
Everybody has rights, can I use mine?
Can I rock shine? Can I have a girl that's too fine?
Got a swell life, tell me will I lose mine?
Every time I turn around somebody new dying
Let's start living, alecart, Escargo, Escobar invest my millions
Mansion for the wife the rest for the children
Knowing that they coming anytime
But until then I'm gonna in lost till they shoot me
Million dollar stones in my camouflaged Gucci
Giving you this crack like Pookie
To question the system, be the resistance
No matter what color you are, everybody niggas
You can stand by and watch or you can march on with us”

This is the lyric that struck me and I played it over 4 times because never before have I heard a rapper that states the politics of this postmodern world so well. Public Enemy left an unforgettable fingerprint on political rap (sorry 2pac-fans, even the chosen one is indebted to Mr. D) so that most political rappers stress the Black power ideals of living as one nation, living amongst the “people”, and fighting the “power” that be. Well what happens when all our rapping heroes become richer than our politicians? What happens when we become the “man”? Well the simple truth is that kids want to be T.I. more than they want to be Sticman (Dead Prez); we want to be the master more than we want to be the slave.

What does politics look like in a materialistic, oppressive world where the most powerful woman and man could very well be Oprah and Obama while most of us live in startling conditions of poverty?

Well Nas has an answer, and it is filled with so many paradoxes that it might be the closest thing to truth that Hip Hop has spawned in a long time. Whether we are rich, poor, old, young, black, white, man, or woman we are all the master and the slave; we all have some sort of control over our life and our community that should be exercised. Getting money is progress but it is not all; and it is not nothing either. Nas can be a revolutionary, but also can be happy in his current state of wealth. Being rich and old does not mean you should alienate yourself from the youth, instead we must recognize our face in this society. We all can be critical citizens, question our media, politicians, and our own history; we can fight for progress whether you wear Gucci or Wal-mart. He stresses in the song “we’re not alone”,

“Take a look in the mirror
And see the bigger picture
Its good to be alive
Its good to be alive
Nobody is an island
we are part of an environment
Only way we gone survive
Is if we harmonize
We're not alone”

This type of message is not unique, many people stress unity as something to fight for. But nobody – well no rapper – before him has put his own persona as a living paradox into the limelight for critique and education. No rapper has so devoted their album to a message of complete unity in the fight for equality with such depth, complexity, and without cliché.

He closes the album with another complex track, an ode to Barack Obama. Far from the Will.I.Am youtube video, he expresses his fear for Obama’s life and also if he will turn out to be an Uncle Tom. The chorus is a ripped line from 2pac, “although it seems heaven sent/ we ain’t ready for a black president”; but by the end he endorses Obama reluctantly, yet forcefully. He signs off saying “sincerely yours, USA’s most brave rapper”. I’m a critical citizen like you Nas, but I can’t critique that sentiment.

Cop this album, it’s a true classic by a rapper who has hit a new a plateau. A message to all other rappers in the game: Step your game up…because Nas just left most others in the dust.

The Definition of REALmatic

I am tired. I am very tired these days, yet I am neither fatigued nor exhausted. In fact I am more excited than I ever have been – yet I am tired. Why am I tired? I am tired of this stagnant society – I am tired of delay and reaction; dammit it is time for some action. I am tired of waiting for change I can believe in because with every wasted second it becomes harder and harder to believe in the kind of change we need.

As a young boy I found that the role of an outcast and leader seemed to suit me. I was often ridiculed for being smart, acting white, being short, having the last name “Brady”, and many other things – but for all the setbacks I was myself. As I grew into my adolescence I desired to fit in, to achieve a level of popularity I never knew as a child. I sacrificed much of what I used to be, yet in my journey to conform I gained new knowledge of myself too. In the end my desire to conform was misguided – I fundamentally did not understand myself at the time. I learned that I was not yet smart enough to be around very smart people, yet I was too arrogantly smart to be around normal people. I’m not exactly “Black”, not at all “white”, and not bi-racial in the least bit. My journey to find a place to fit in was misguided because I learned I wasn’t made to fit in particular category. I think as all people grow up they experience this moment of truth – the day they decide to truly be an individual. I was truly born to be an outcast – yet I find much strength in this position.

As I have stopped growing in height, I have grown tired of our social conditions and our relative complacency in them. I am tired of laughing at jokes that are not funny; tired of talking to blind people; tired of a society that refuses to move as if we are on a race track going at no speeds besides a slow crawl. Then again this racetrack has been like hot tar to our people – sticking and burning us to one spot.

Therefore what is to be done in a world where not only have we become complacent in our positions but also our socio-economic conditions keep us from progressing? I think the time has come to keep it real.

As our society – specifically Black people – have progressed, the entertainment industry has fundamentally changed all aspects of our existence. Entertainment has superceded all activities including political and intellectual pursuits. Even religion is demanded to be entertaining, as the growing popularity of pop-Gospel and televangelists. Keeping it real has been outsourced to the world of entertainment: comedians, rappers, and public intellectuals (think Mr. Dyson doing a jig on that BET commercial) are those that speak on our behalf. But do they truly desire change?

Their jobs as entertainers are directly related to society’s problems so my answer would be no.

This is not to say they are particularly bad people, but they have no incentive to really try to push activist agendas that could polarize audiences and potentially put them out of a job. Its why comedians are so pessimistic, rappers are so materialistic, and public intellectuals tend to do very little large-scale activist projects they advocate for in books. This is why there is a vacuum for leadership right now. Nobody is truly keeping it real, they are only keeping things the same.

Keeping it real is not about being pessimistic or disillusioned; blind or naïve. Keeping it real often means to – as Chris Rock would say – “keep it real dumb”, but this is obviously not good enough. I think there is also a thing as being too smart to be real, thus there is a balance to be struck between these two extremes. Now is a unique time to be a Black intellectual because there truly is a demand for smart, political, and real brothas and sistahs out here ready to make change. But lets be real about keeping it real: we are truly sailing in uncharted waters here so experimentation and innovation is definitely necessary. I think a real intellectual are those that act in numerous spaces all at once to reach as many people as possible. A real intellectual does not see this time as a period for relaxation, happiness, and success – it must be seen as a war. I declare war for the souls of all folk like Dubois remixed: my weapons of choice are writing, the Internet, music, and activism. What are yours?

I know it is relatively unclear why I wasted my time to write this and why I wasted your time asking you to read this. I am using this note as a way of announcing a new beginning for me. I am starting a blog called The REALmatic Society to feed my thoughts to the world. I do not have the arrogance to believe that I will reach a large audience, but if 1 person can begin to understand my thoughts and my dedication to the project of humanization and global equality than I have won. I picked the title after my favorite Rap album: Illmatic by Nas. Check out this couplet by Mr. Nastradamus himself:

“Time is Illmatic
Keep static like wool fabric”

If time is illmatic, than society should be REALmatic. This “democratic” society (I stress the quotations) should be about the process of being real with our elected officials, corporate heads, our families, and our communities. Oftentimes we refuse to be real with each other and take shortcuts that end up shortchanging our race, our nation, and our struggle for freedom. Through this blog I hope to tell those who will listen to me how I plan to keep myself real, keep my community real, and keep this (global) society real. Hopefully I can pick up some allies along the way, because a revolution of one is the same as a revolution of none.

If you enjoy thinking about how to love the people and free the people – and truly wish to act upon those thoughts – than join me at realmaticsociety.blogspot.com.

Thank you for reading and remember to keep it real – its better to be a real individual than a forgettable tool. Deuces.