I love Pride…the song God I’m with you. But that argument doesn’t really hold weight. Stillmatic has Braveheart party which is in the running for worst song ever recorded. It’s so bad they tried to rewrite history and remove it from future versions.
I think you can have A dud if literally every other song goes. More than 2 is when you have to remove it from the conversation
I can't stand the beat on Pride. Just repetitive and clangy, sounds like someone clanging a metal stick across a bike rack or something. The only songs I see as outright classics on Damn are DNA, FEEL, FEAR, and DUCKWORTH. It has other good songs, YAH and LUST have dope vibes for instance, but those four kinda stand head and shoulders above the rest. And when certain songs tower over the other songs, you gotta question its consistency as a classic. I'd give it a solid 4/5 though, it's a good album.
Nas is my favorite rapper but I can't front, Braveheart Party is his worst song. Funny thing is I don't think he wanted the song off the album, Mary J. requested it to be taken off for some reason. She did him a huge favor with that one. Where I actually differ with my fellow Nas stans is I don't think the production held up entirely on Stillmatic, a couple beats didn't age well...which is why I don't have it as an indisputable Nas classic with Illmatic, IWW and TLT. Most would disagree with me on that one (don't kill me fellow Nas stans). I think LIG, KDII and Magic are more consistent production wise. But where it does hold up is his performance, he was on fire for the whole album. One of his best pure rap performances.