In
the Illmatic album,
Nas looks back on his youth in the projects, addressing crime and violence as a natural part of his environment. The tunes have a mature sound to them, making you feel like Nas is was much older ghetto veteran, even though he was barely out of his teens when the album was released. In all of these tracks, Nas is rapping about the joy and pain of urban life and towards this end has come up with something that is pure New York Hip Hop. Each of these tracks is so compelling that if you miss one, you miss out on the meaning of the album as whole—that you can rise above your circumstances.
