June 26, 2003 @ 9:00 pm

Nas - God's Son (Columbia)

Serena Kim

Stillmatic, released last year amid a flurry of controversy, was a triumph, redeeming Nas’s waning street credibility.

Stillmatic, released last year amid a flurry of controversy, was a triumph, redeeming Nas’s waning street credibility. But his latest, more mature album, God’s Son, goes further than the lyrical infighting and antiwar propaganda of Stillmatic, boldly exloring thems of nostalgia, redemption, retribution, and responsibility. With grim determination, Nas sets out to give the currently vacuous genre of hip hop a swift kick in the ass like it was his own manifest destiny. He’s definitely the right man for the job. Nas has always had a knack for coming up with ill song concepts, and this album is proof. Its crowning jewel is “Get Down,” a suspenseful rap story that traverses the violent streets of Queensbridge, the drug-addled South, and a tragic Crip funeral along Crenshaw Boulevard in L.A., delivered with the kind of artistry and skill that first made him famous in ’94. Nas settles old scores on “Last Real Nigga Alive,” on which he reveals juicy details about his unforgettable ride in Puffy’s Range Rover before B.I.G.’s Ready to Die was released; being caught in the beef between Wu-Tang and Bad Boy; and perhaps most painfully, his feelings of betrayal when his daughter’s mother slept with Jay-Z. “The gift and the curse, fuck that shit, the first shall be last,” he spits, referencing Hov’s latest album. For “My Book of Rhymes,” Nas flips through the pages of his old notebooks, beginning to recite what sound like potentially amazing songs, only to dismiss them as immature scribblings. He’s disarmingly self-deprecating here, and gives us a rare look into his artistic process. His willingness to appear weak further cements his strength. The risks he takes with the production are a big part of the allure of God’s Son. In a time when a Neptunes beat is as essential as a savvy marketing plan, Nas goes in the other direction, giving producer Salaam Remi plenty of room. Remi waxes sentimental over hip hop’s Golden Era on songs like the breakbeat-infused “Made You Look” and the singsongy “I Can.” Nas entrusts Alicia Keys to produce a war cry of epic proportions and soaring vistas on “Warrior Song”; as she sings behind his seething lyrics, an African drum beat morphs into a marching-band drill. But is it a perfect album? Not quite. There are a few glaring blemishes, like the busy and dissonant “Zone Out,” which offers not enough Nas and too much of the talentless Bravehearts. “Hey Nas” features his rumored love interest, Kelis, and City High’s Claudette Ortiz. But even Kelis’s haunting, Vanity 6–like vocal quality can’t save the insipid hook. Then there are Nas’s old-fashioned requirements for wifey, like cooking well. “If I want Chinese, then go buy a wok / If I want barbecue / Call Professor and Ak” is a clever couplet that winks at his legendary debut on Main Source’s “Live at the Barbecue”—but it still doesn’t redeem the song. Some time in the late ’90s, Nasty Nas, as we once knew him, died—death by mediocrity and misdirection. Loyal fans who had received Illmatic as gospel were understandably disappointed by the blatant commercialism of his successive albums. Humiliated by his diminishing presence on urban radio, BET, and MTV; burning with a sense of righteous indignation; and fueled by the loss of his mother to breast cancer last year, Nasir Jones, the great lyricist, was roused to battle—resurrected, not surprisingly, by death.

Article tags: Nas, God's, Son, Columbia 

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http://www.vibe.com/music/revolutions/2003/06/nas_gods_son_columbia/

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