WHO'S YOUR FAVORITE RAPPER?

"SOME THINGS ARE FOREVER, SOME THINGS ARE NOT. IT'S THE THINGS WE REMEMBER, THAT GAVE THE WORLD SHOCK."

- NAS

get lost between god and a shot of scotch.
i am so fucking cranky right now, it's redic. weekend was fucking awesome though. who doesn't love greygoose when you're already hungover?! who doesn't love dim sum with good company?! who doesn't love picking up your boyfriend from work cuz he's hungover?! ay. i came to my computer not knowing what i was going to write this about. who's my favorite rapper?! well.. it's NaS! it has always been nas..! does that answer the question?! ok fine, we'll go further.



i don't know how many times i've said it, but i'll say it again.. illmatic is the greatest album of all time. the album has ten songs, and if you've listened to it, beginning to end.. you know. this shit changes your view on music completely. illmatic is nothing short of perfection. absolutely nothing short. his lyricism is consistent, and there's not one nas song to this day that i've listened to which doesn't have something special about it. heads might get at me for saying that, but even the track he did with ginuwine is repeatable! admit it.
hip hop is more than those two words. so much more. poetry is one of the greatest literacy forms we have ever created, and when you take poetry and combine that with a beat that captures your soul in a way that moves and inspires you.. it's magic. nas is an intellectual fuck that portrays poetry in a light that most thought was impossible. his words are of such intellect that you rewind the track no matter how many times you've heard it just because you notice something you didn't the last time.
regardless of what you listen to, please listen to illmatic, and you be the one to tell me that that shit isn't timeless. plus he's consistent, not saying he drops an album every year, but he's been here for quite some time.. and he's still doing music big. that means a lot.. anyone who works hard deserves your attention. these aren't half fast thrown together shit music. this is intellect at its finest!
so how can you like nas so much when he doesn't get much light!? yeah i hear it out alls the time.. dude who came up to me and said "nas may have won the battle, but jay-z won the war".. i'll say no all day! jay-z can't par with nas! lyrically, nas kills jay. no question. jay-z, is a commercial rapper. i believe if anything, that was the whole reason jay got at nas.. he knew he had to.. but he couldn't.. ether is too much fire.. and if you went up to every lyrically skilled rapper, and counted how many times they said nas was the greatest rapper, you'd have enough comments to celebrate the new york king. leave record sales out of it. diddy's no way out sold enough albums to support a small country, and there is no way on earth that diddy is better than nas! nas isn't top financially, but trey songz is on the top 5 of the billboards right now.. so what's that tell you?
my love and growing appreciation for hip hop is because of nas. with an album cover like "untitled" he puts himself in a controversial position, threatening his reputation so that the world will shut the fuck up for a second, and listen to some good rap. he takes criticism with pride and more importantly he responds to it (50 cent window shopper, be easy!!)
with other rappers (i won't get into this too much because this is a whole other discussion to be fucked with) being known to a lot as the best rappers of all time it leaves you with a question, does death make you great?! my boyfriend and i talk about how rappers would be if they were still alive all the time. would they have deviated and become complete pansies!? would they still be lyricists?! were they as great as they were, or do they seem more so because they're gone!? it's hard to answer such because they're all "what ifs".. but nas proved one thing, you don't have to be dead to be a legend.
so you love nas?! why?!
for being up to par.. for illmatic being an educational piece which was disected by scholars like eric dyson (i have the book and still haven't read it lol.. writing this makes me want to stop typing and finish it right now!!!).. for bringing forth humour.. for getting only one album rated 3 mics, and every other being 4 mics and higher! for story telling about situations that grip you, without celebrating horror. for helping youth to achieve greatness and for helping humanity to hold on to hope. for "fuck 'rap is real', watch the herbs stand still / never talkin' to snakes cause the words of man kill / true in the game, as long as blood is blue in my veins".. for "beyond the walls of intelligence, life is defined".. for "street scriptures, for lost souls in the crossroads".. for, "people afraid of criticism but I always put myself in a sacrificial position,they been know i ain't just rappin for fame"..

he's not in it for the fame, he's in it to teach, for respect, for voice.. and i will never stop listening.



nas is king.