Review Summary: “I would talk about killin’ more, but that was the 16th bar and we gotta go to the chorus now. I want to be a marketable murderer. “
- Hannibal Buress
The most overlooked aspect of Illmatic is also one of its most important. The hooks were excellent. They grew organically out of the beat, working with the song instead of against of it. They didn’t feel like label mandated attempts to placate the radio, actual time and effort were put into a few simple phrases (“Yo, its halftime” “One love, one love”) that managed to keep heads nodding and be catchy. The hooks on Nastradamus punch every song straight in the stomach. Then when the song crumples to the ground gasping for air, the hooks stomp its crotch over and over, puts its cigarette out in its eye, then spits on it.
If Nastradamus serves any purpose, it should serve as a handbook on how to not make a chorus. They’re either so long winded and clumsy you don’t even realize its supposed to be the hook until it shows up the second time (“Last Words”) or hilariously inept (“Shoot em up, just shoot em up, what!? Kill kill kill, murder murder murder”) It doesn’t help that every beat on the album sounds like a preset loop on a Casio keyboard. I don’t know who Rich Nice, L.E.S., or Damn Grease but they work their reverse Midas touch magic on every beat they handle on here. Like the triangle? L.E.S. sure does, he uses it on damn near every beat he produces on here. Timbaland was on such a hot streak at the time that he turns in a solid C- track and still runs away with the best beat on the album.
Surely the lyrics are the albums saving grace, right? I mean, for god sakes, the man wrote “NY State of Mind”. I thought that going in, I would be able to find at least one example of well thought out lyricism on this but nope. I got nothing. Nastradamous opens and closes with verses from poet Jessica Care More that are supposed to be on some next level, third eye *** but ends up sounding like “Cool, pass the bowl”, but at least it tries to be deep. Nas fills the space between rapping about money and murder with the enthusiasm of a 3rd grader reading a book report. Nas has improved immensely at the money raps (See: “The Don”) but here it’s the most boring thing you’ll hear.
And then there’s “Big Girl”…
It opens with a bit of silence and a cymbal roll that serves as a warning, get out while you still can. There are no metaphors or similes I can come with that can describe how awful this song is, so I present to you the chorus in full:
“Fully grown with your hormones now/Got your own home and you alone/Wanna bone, wanna moan, get your back blown out/No more daddy's little girl/You a big girl now, in a world, where these niggas are foul/You could be aborting the next Michael Jordan/Your man don't wanna be around/You're a big girl now/She's sexy, she got it, she ride it/Every nigga wanna be inside it/No more daddy's little girl/I need her, I'll eat her/Do anything to please her/My ghetto queen of Sheba”
“Big Girl” is the musical equivalent to watching the Hindenburg crash and burn. Oh, the humanity.
I hate this album. From the deepest part of my soul, I hate this album. Every time I see Nas stare out at me on the album cover as it sits next to the un-fu*k-withalbe Illmatic on my iPod, every time I hear Nas trip over his own feet singing “Nasty Nas- the Esco- To- Escobar- Now he is Nastradamus!”, every time Nas gets on his vision of the future *** and raps “Swallow a little pill, that’s a four-course meal!” amongst other Y2K future prediction bull***tery. Nastradamus is a failure on every level and one of the worst albums I have ever heard. Deleting it from my iTunes will be the highlight of my day.
