Illmatic 1994
By Nas
- hip hop, east coast hip hop, boom bap, hardcore hip hop
- 40 min
- 10 tracks
- Columbia
Illmatic is the debut studio album by the American rapper Nas, released on April 19, 1994, through Columbia Records. After signing with the label with the help of MC Serch, Nas recorded the album in 1992 and 1993 at Chung King Studios, D&D Recording, Battery Studios, and Unique Recording Studios in New York City. The album's production was handled by DJ Premier, Large Professor, Pete Rock, Q-Tip, L.E.S., and Nas himself. Styled as a hardcore hip-hop album, Illmatic features multi-syllabic internal rhymes and inner-city narratives based on Nas's experiences growing up in the Queensbridge Houses in Queens, New York. He started writing lyrics for the album when he was 16 years old.
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Character
Earnest, grave, classical in form and meticulous.
- earnestironic
- gravecomic
- classical in formformally daring
- rawmeticulous
- character-ledplot-driven
Who loves it, who doesn't
6 profiled raters. Loved most by The Comfort Seekers.
Where do you stand?
Answer first; then see how everyone, and your circle, split.
“Is the best-known track the weakest one?”
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“Would Illmatic hit harder if it came out today rather than in 1994?”
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Ask the title
A yes-or-no question, answered from what people wrote here, on TMDB and on Wikipedia. Never made up.
Reviews
- hollisThe Empath★★★★★
Forty minutes, no filler, a whole city in it. The production is a museum of a year that never came back.
Tracks
- 1The Genesis1:45
- 2N.Y. State of Mind4:54
- 3Life’s a Bitch3:31
- 4The World Is Yours4:51
- 5Halftime4:21
- 6Memory Lane (Sittin’ in da Park)4:08
- 7One Love5:26
- 8One Time 4 Your Mind3:19
- 9Represent4:13
- 10It Ain’t Hard to Tell3:22
10 tracks, 40 minutes.
About the album
- Artist
- Nas
- Label
- Columbia
- Released
- 1994
- Type
- Album
- Format
- CD
- Country
- US
From MusicBrainz, the earliest official release of this album.
Where to listen
Each opens a search for this album on that service.
Pairings
Companions we picked from the closest works, and how to take them.
Similar in taste
Closest on the same fourteen dimensions, from everything scored on Curator Co. Other media included when they land close.
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