Hip-Hop is Tatted On My Heart

Ok,so I know this is hella late but when I am broke I don't buy albums, and even when I do buy them it actually takes me a while to listen to them. So I finally bought Nas' most recent album during Winter break and even though I immediately liked it, I am just now writing a review of it. I just take a long time to right posts because I like to get my thoughts together. PS. I will be posting some bomb stuff in the upcoming days or weeks, lol. But now on to the review. Wait, I mean, let me say something first. I love being black, one main reason of that would be our music. Even though the rest of the world may think that is all that we are good for, it is one thing that we are excellent at. We make music that even though the whole world can't understand, the entire world listens to. Sometimes, its even hard for me to understand what artists mean by the lyrics they right or even decipher the words they say. I make up my own words and my own meanings when that happens. I am a huge music fan, I am a huge hip-hop fan. Hip-Hop is the music our people, even though all of us don't listen to it. I think when you listen to music besides neo-soul, r&b, and hip-hop, you can appreciate music more and you can appreciate hip-hop more. Now hip-hop was definitely better in the 90s, but I won't say that hip-hop is dead now, or even wack. Artists are taking shit to another level, lyrics, beats are more intricate more intelligent, which is probably why I can't understand shit, that coupled with the fact that I lived in the hood for all of my life, but I was also very sheltered from it, so don't ask me shit about gangs and all that hoopla. Hip-hop in the nineties was all about being raw. Beats, rhymes were about the hood, played in the hood, and the artists wore hood clothes. Now artists, are making bullshit clothing lines like Pastelle, lol. We got hip-hop artists that wouldn't last a day in a real hood. Hip-Hop has been commercialized, not saying that its a bad thing. The white kids listening don't know anything about our struggle, but they making the artists rich. With hip-hop and rap we got more black millionaires than ever before. This brings me to the difference between and hip-hop artists and rappers, hip-hop and rap. Every hip-hop artists is a rapper every now and then, when they want something that is just fun, dumb, that they can play on the radio, that can be played in the clubs, that people can dance to, that will make them sell, and that every one can understand. It's just that usually rappers are always rappers, letting the beat override their voices, keeping their voice tone the same throughout every song(change it up sometimes muthafuckas), not riding the beat, moving with the flow of the beat, not going in and out of the beat, but being lazy as they talk their way through the song. Rappers have no finesse, have no respect for the art, the struggle, the ones that came before them, they just want their piece of the pie. Hip-Hop songs are songs that you can listen to when you feel no one understands you, when you want to hear some real shit, when you want to know that these artists respect you enough to give you something to zone out to because you giving them your hard earned cash.

I'm not going to lie, even though I am a big music and hip-hop fan, I just jumped on this train. I got my first CD when other kids already had a cool ass collection. My first CD was Brandy's Never Say Never. My mom wouldn't let me get any CD's with the parental advisory symbol on it, so that killed it. Therefore I wasn't exposed to hip-hop until I got to college. Earlier, I wasn't really a hip-hop girl, thinking it was boy's music. Then I bought Common's Finding Forever, and discovered LimeWire(thanks Erica!) simultaneously! It changed my life, my favorite rapper is Common, and I have a bomb ipod playlist. I am always searching for new music constantly and I spend hella money on ITunes.

Finally the review, Nas' most recent album, opens with an almost a Capella joint, right to start this profound album. It's definitely a different style for Nas, but its good. It solidifies his place in my heart as a hip-hop artists. This album is a pleading from Nas for his black people to do better. He accomplishes this while making the album informative and entertaining. I always new Nas was one to be reckoned with but this album makes his smarts and his sexiness known to me. Kelis got a good man, and he got a good girl, lol. Ths next track, samples the same song Mos Def did on Undeniable, "no matter how hard you try to can't stop us now". All three songs are inspiring. You may not agree with a lot of Nas' sentiments in this album, but you have to agree that this album is one of the best to come from anyone in years. I like to think of it as the brother album to Erykah Badu's most recent, which was also excellent and elevating in every way. Of course, Nas puts some Rap/Hip-Hip songs on the album, which can be found in Hero and Make the World Go 'Round. Buy it! You'll thank yourself, its definitely an enlightening experience.