One of hip-hop’s first great emcees, Kool Moe Dee was also famous for his ‘rapper report cards.’ He turned that concept into a book, in which he rates and breaks down some of hip-hop’s best. Here is a sample (from boxden.com), of what he had to say about Nas. “There’s A God On The Mic” is available now.
#11 Nas: The Ghetto Prophet
If you want it lyrical, street, and spiritual, Nas is your man. Nas is truly a ghetto griot. He is one of the best poignant storytellers in Hip-Hop. What’s unique about Nas as a storyteller is that he does it as a lyricist. As most Hip-Hop aficionados know, most lyricists are not truly great storytellers, and most storytellers are not really lyrical. Although many emcees do both, Nas is one of the few that do both at an extremely high level…
This was the beginning of the third generation of the three lyrical kings (Biggie, Jay-Z, and Nas). Of the three, Nas was truthfully the most cerebral. While Biggie was the potent intensity, and Jay-Z the flashy slick flavor, Nas seemed to be more spiritually inclined and more well read within that context…
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Right now, Nas is somewhere else. He’s on another level. Although his body of work has been solid for nine years, he has never done an album as diverse as God’s Son. The subject matter and the lyrical content is definitely more thought provoking than ever before. He has slipped into that rare zone that Tupac, Latifah, and few others have slipped into. He;s now starting to be viewed as a voice for the culture, rather than a voice of the culture. His lyrical game was always tight, but he even stepped up the flow. For the first time other than on the songs ;Ether and Hate Me Now; you can feel the passion coming out of him throughout the whole album.
You can read the entire excerpt at our message board
