Cormega Giving Props To It Was Written

[JustCKing]

This album has gotten more love from me over the years, but I didn't like it at all minus a few cuts when it first dropped. And I'd probably put Stillmatic over it tbh.

There's no beating around the bush about shyt like this was "ahead of its time" or whatever spin people wanna put on it. It got criticized when it came out because it was an album catering to a mainstream sound smack dab in the middle of a sound war in '96. The East vs. West beef wasn't the only friction in hip-hop that year. The battle for the direction of hip-hop was alive and well and I clearly remember it. Plenty of people felt (and still do) that Nas was selling the music short.

It was ahead of its time though. What other artist who was championed by the underground crossed the lines and unapologetically made a more mainstream sounding album? By 1997, what Nas was doing with IWW was common

 

[Mike Wins]

Jay z never said Nas was top 3. He said people argued. Not him

Jay a stan for Nas, like you a stan for Jay. A harsh truth you Hov stans don't want to accept

For real though you'd be better not even acknowledging it, like yall do with the year 2002, instead of making these lame desperate arguments

 

[Piff Perkins]

@Cladyclad again, who thinks 50 is a consensus top 3-5 rapper or even top ten? Just so we're clear, the general people I'm talking about are (in no order):

Jay
Big
Pac
Nas
Andre 3k
Eminem
Scarface
Rakim
G Rap
KRS
Wayne

That's just a general list, not my own. But you can tell when someone is or isn't in the convo. Ghostface is in my top 10 personally but I'm not gonna act like he's a consensus top 10 rapper.

 

[FunkDoc1112]

Of course this would turn into a Nas/Jay-Z thread.

Y'all really are sheep, god damn.

That's cladyclad's dumbass fault

 

[FunkDoc1112]

I have Vol. 2 as a classic because after it dropped, a lot of artist's copied that template for a successful album. These were the super producer, I need a song for every type of audience type albums. Jadakiss and Fabolous spent most of their careers trying to mimic what Jay had going on Vol. 2.

Try again, please.

Vol. 2 and It Was Written are similar in that the Stretch & Bobbito-type crowd looked at it sideways and stopped fukking with them but they woke them up to the rest of the hip-hop world. Vol. 2 was actually considered a return to form from Jay-Z by most heads after Vol. 1 but let message boards tell it that's when he fell off quality-wise.

 

[Mike Wins]

IWW being considered a classic album is not some Nas fan specific argument though. If you were to say the idea of Untitled or God's Son being classics are Nas fan/stan specific arguments then yea you'd be right. IWW being a classic is not some controversial take, and certainly not in New York.

The thing that confuses me is if everyone or most people think Nas only has one GREAT (or classic) album, why is he an automatic top 3-5 rapper in the eyes of so many people from that era and eras after? Clearly there's something missing here. You say he has multiple good albums and I'd agree, but there's a disconnect here. A lot of dudes from NY got one great or classic album. Why aren't they held in the same esteem, especially in New York?

Have said this plenty of times before but how big an album it was in real time and how influential it was got overshadowed by Pac and BIG's deaths but the influence it had on East Coast rap the next few years was obvious

80% of the audience it reached hadn't even heard Illmatic. Most listeners at the time, this was their introduction to Nas and it got love coast to coast from the public

So, album with A++ lyricism with multiple iconic tracks, got love nationwide, in the streets, on the charts, had a massive influence on the next years of hip hop, and stood the test of time, but it's not a classic because some purists and dudes thought it was too commercial, and some Hov stan The Coli who was 10 when it dropped says it wasn't ringing out in the streets like that

 

[Ziggiy]

This album has gotten more love from me over the years, but I didn't like it at all minus a few cuts when it first dropped. And I'd probably put Stillmatic over it tbh.

There's no beating around the bush about shyt like this was "ahead of its time" or whatever spin people wanna put on it. It got criticized when it came out because it was an album catering to a mainstream sound smack dab in the middle of a sound war in '96. The East vs. West beef wasn't the only friction in hip-hop that year. The battle for the direction of hip-hop was alive and well and I clearly remember it. Plenty of people felt (and still do) that Nas was selling the music short.

If you hear Nas rapping; the lyrics, flows, metaphors, cadence, breath control, attention to detail, song writing, storytelling and sheer MCing throughout that album and think Nas is selling the music the short then God save your ears man….

 

[Mike Wins]

That's cladyclad's dumbass fault

The dude who whine about Nas fans being obsessed with Hov, but is on every Nas thread like a fly on shyt, back on his bullshyt again can't believe it

 

[Cladyclad]

@Cladyclad again, who thinks 50 is a consensus top 3-5 rapper or even top ten? Just so we're clear, the general people I'm talking about are (in no order):

Jay
Big
Pac
Nas
Andre 3k
Eminem
Scarface
Rakim
G Rap
KRS
Wayne

That's just a general list, not my own. But you can tell when someone is or isn't in the convo. Ghostface is in my top 10 personally but I'm not gonna act like he's a consensus top 10 rapper.

Hate to say this but Nas is mentioned because of his era by people from that era. He not consensus anymore breh. Them days long gone

 

[Cladyclad]

Jay a stan for Nas, like you a stan for Jay. A harsh truth you Hov stans don't want to accept

For real though you'd be better not even acknowledging it, like yall do with the year 2002, instead of making these lame desperate arguments

Jay loved/stanned illmatic but thought the rest of nas albums were meh. Because if he didn’t like IWW or I am he damn sure ain’t like anything after that like that

 

[FunkDoc1112]

Jay loved/stanned illmatic but thought the rest of nas albums were meh. Because if he didn’t like IWW or I am he damn sure ain’t like anything after that like that

On the video you refused to watch Jay straight up said he was just saying shyt for a reaction not because he actually thought it

 

[New Jeruzalem Journalist]

If you hear Nas rapping; the lyrics, flows, metaphors, cadence, breath control, attention to detail, song writing, storytelling and sheer MCing throughout that album and think Nas is selling the music the short then God save your ears man….

An MC can give a great performance on a song or even an entire album and that album still be flawed as a result of the direction the artist goes with the album. That's not some bizarre concept and it's not like Nas was or is the only MC who ever caught that critique.

 

[New Jeruzalem Journalist]

maybe those so called "people" should've supported the sound & Illmatic back then

Maybe they did. He would have never even been given an opportunity to make It Was Written if they didn't. Why would the label bother putting up thosr type of resources for a sophomore album if that wasn't the case?

 

[New Jeruzalem Journalist]

It was ahead of its time though. What other artist who was championed by the underground crossed the lines and unapologetically made a more mainstream sounding album? By 1997, what Nas was doing with IWW was common

I mean, if that's what you mean by ahead of its time, then yeah, I guess. That's not necessarily what I have in my mind when I hear that phrase though.

 

[jensyao]

is the secret firm album still happening? nas moved on and dropped 2 albums since he said it and people probably moved on by now