Nas - Untitled
Def Jam/Universal
By Ben Stern
Nas brings lyrical heat on his latest offering Untitled thereby (somewhat ironically) proving that hip hop is in fact very much alive, not dead as he originally claimed. Lyrically Nas still spits raw unadulterated raps in the style you'd expect, but it seems his style has matured.
You won't find his "Sneak a uzi off the island in my army jacket lining" style of ghetto fables on this album; instead there's a more socially conscious and political-charged album looking at subject matter that would make Chuck D proud. The album delves heavily into racial relations in the US playing out the ironies of stereotypes and afrocentricity, but don't think for a second though that Nas has gone soft: he is still the same rebel to America.
The album is laced together with a host of producers unused by Nas on previous album giving a new diversity to his sound, from the soulful horn ridden sound of Mark Ronson on ‘Fried Chicken' to the heavy guitar work of Stic.man of Dead Perz on ‘Sly Fox', an ode to the bias media of Fox network. This is a great album, the closest his every come to revamping the passion as demonstrated on his freshman album Illmatic.