The main problem is we as rap music fan we are not patient wit our artists. It's like rap artist careers used to be so short that if you didn't drop something every two years, you faded in peope's mind. But now it's different, it's acceptable now to have a twenty year carreer, so artists like nas, jay... who were able to pass that mark and still be relevant can afford to take take with their album. In other genras like rock n roll you can wait 5 years or ten between two albums. People fail to realize that for an artist (especially for someone like Nas who puts his soul into his lyrics) to be able to tell something worth listening you have to let him live, make experiences, travel the world, read and see things, meet people. It's call living. And when he will feel ready to share experience and accumulate a certain inspiration, get new ideas, he will let it out. We often say the first album is often the best and it's because the first album is generally 20 years of experience accumulated in one effort. And the best nas joints were often driven by a special context (his rise to the game, new richessness, jay z attack, his mom death, his divorce).
That's the difference between nas and others rappers, he's still interresting to HEAR because he tell a lot of things about himself and black culture that he delivers thanks to his reading and things he had experienced.
My only complain it's a lack of featurings like he used to do in the past inbetween albums to keep us waiting. And not a single leak (exept season) but things got tight around him with his new managing team I guess
So you ain't buy the album huh?...... cause it came out 7/17/12 
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