Mike the Executioner
What went on up there? Poppers and weird sex!
@JustCKing, you didn't like "Dead Presidents?" I always thought that was GOAT-level production. 
But you had an excellent breakdown on the "Nas picks bad beats" narrative. That never made sense to me, especially considering some of the shyt Jay's rapped over. I believe Nas has always been held to a higher standard because he's a lyrical supernova, and his debut album was one of the GOAT albums in music history. Because of that, people expect to have their minds blown every time and when he started experimenting more, people didn't get it. And it was easier to shyt on the obvious misses in his catalog ("Who Killed It," "Summer on Smash") than look at the entire project.
I always said Nas' problem wasn't production, it was track selection. He's worked with every legendary producer under the sun. He might pick a song that works better for the story of the album ("Rest of My Life," "Makings of a Perfect bytch") over an objectively better song ("Talk of New York," "Serious"). But when you see what's left in the vault, it makes you wonder why these songs didn't work when they're so good.
Listening to KD2, Nas doesn't even have that problem anymore. The album is well-sequenced, consistent all the way through. There are no songs that you can point to and say "This should have been left off." Same with the original KD. All the songs fit the story, but they're objectively good to great songs. There's no desire to look at the unreleased tracks. Nothing like "Foul Breeze" or "Where Y'all At" that were left off unnecessarily.
But you had an excellent breakdown on the "Nas picks bad beats" narrative. That never made sense to me, especially considering some of the shyt Jay's rapped over. I believe Nas has always been held to a higher standard because he's a lyrical supernova, and his debut album was one of the GOAT albums in music history. Because of that, people expect to have their minds blown every time and when he started experimenting more, people didn't get it. And it was easier to shyt on the obvious misses in his catalog ("Who Killed It," "Summer on Smash") than look at the entire project.
I always said Nas' problem wasn't production, it was track selection. He's worked with every legendary producer under the sun. He might pick a song that works better for the story of the album ("Rest of My Life," "Makings of a Perfect bytch") over an objectively better song ("Talk of New York," "Serious"). But when you see what's left in the vault, it makes you wonder why these songs didn't work when they're so good.
Listening to KD2, Nas doesn't even have that problem anymore. The album is well-sequenced, consistent all the way through. There are no songs that you can point to and say "This should have been left off." Same with the original KD. All the songs fit the story, but they're objectively good to great songs. There's no desire to look at the unreleased tracks. Nothing like "Foul Breeze" or "Where Y'all At" that were left off unnecessarily.
. Then I was like maybe he was flexing. Untitled dropped with no Will.I.Am tracks and I pretty much forgot about them. Then years later Game dropped Documentary 2.1 and "World Is A Ghetto" is on it. That song was talked about in that Scratch article. Then I remembered Nas talking about those songs. Hearing "World Is A Ghetto" brought validity to Nas leaving some real heat off of HHID. So yeah, Nas's vault is quite possibly a Hip Hop treasure chest.
Truly shytted on the gawd
