Consistency wise, maybe.. since it’s a shorter album.. but the highs on LIG are superior to NASIR for sure.NASIR >>> Life is Good
Consistency wise, maybe.. since it’s a shorter album.. but the highs on LIG are superior to NASIR for sure.NASIR >>> Life is Good
Another negative review with that Kelis/silence narrative. Smh.
Nas 'Nasir' Review
NASIR >>> Life is Good
NASIR >>> Life is Good
First major review is out.
Rolling Stone.
2.5/5 stars
Of course the Cacs hated Not For Radio
After the longest dormant period of his career, Nas returned last week with Nasir, the slightest, lowest-concept record in his discography. It’s executive produced by Kanye West––a generation-defining genius maybe, but just as importantly: the guy who produced “Takeover," Jay-Z's epochal 2001 evisceration of Nas. It’s the fourth of five G.O.O.D. Music albums dropped in five weeks, all overseen by Kanye, all seven songs long. It also comes in the midst of scandal for both men. West, as has been well-documented, started promoting this string of albums by flirting with the online alt-right and loudly proclaiming his love for Donald Trump. Less global but maybe graver: in April, Nas’s ex-wife, the artist-turned-chef Kelis, gave an interview in which she alleged brutal physical violence at the rapper’s hands. (Nas had previously been accused of striking Carmen Bryan, the mother of his daughter, in Bryan’s 2006 autobiography.)
Nas hasn't publicly addressed the allegations from Kelis, and he doesn't broach the subject on Nasir, either, unless you count an oblique line on the closer, “Simple Things” (“Was loving women you’ll never see me / All you know’s my kids’ mothers, some celebrities / Damn, look at the jealousy”). In fact, even considering the short running time, there’s little in the way of narrative or thematic design. It’s among Nas’s most scattered records, unfocused and unclear. And when it comes to simple execution, Nasir plays to his weaknesses as a writer and finds him staid and tired where Life Is Good probed for new ground, clumsy and subdued where he’s often been breathtaking.
Nas has, in the past, been a near-peerless writer when dealing in autobiography or writing linear, detail-rich narrative. He’s generally been at his least effective when he’s at his most abstract, or when he’s mulling over grandiose theories. Nasir’s opener, “Not For Radio,” dives headlong into a list of theories, some reasonable and some (“Fox News was started by a black dude”) easily disproved. Despite that, the song almost works––it sounds like a villain’s theme from a b-movie, and Puff is flown in simply to talk shyt––but Nas’s verses are ultimately too pedestrian, as writing and as performance.
While Nas has never been the most musically gifted rapper, he’s been a precise technician, able to rap exceptionally both with and againstthe beat. On Nasir, though, he often plods, which leaves his writing exposed. This makes for songs that are, frankly, a drag: “Bonjour” is a long-winded argument that Nas goes on a lot of dates, and “White Label” is basically content to revel in the fact that Nas has become a successful investor. (The latter song features a true late-Nas head scratcher: “What you love can kill you / Like a heart physician dying of a heart attack.”) While the seven-song format has served both Pusha-T and Kid Cudiwell, and while Nas has made perhaps the greatest short rap record ever in his classic 1994 debut Illmatic, the brevity doesn’t do him any favors here. The two dominant modes on Nasir are self-satisfaction and a sort of workmanlike stiffness, neither of which suits Nas and both of which make the album’s 26 minutes seem far longer.
'Nasir' Is the One Thing the Rapper has Never Been Before – Dull