Nas wants rappers to be honest in their music
theGRIO REPORT - This weekend kicked off the 20th anniversary celebration for Nas' Illmatic, one of the greatest albums in the history of hip-hop...
This weekend kicked off the 20th anniversary celebration for Nas’ Illmatic, one of the greatest albums in the history of hip-hop.
The 1994 debut from Nasir Jones is universally considered to be a classic whose themes of social injustice and the struggles of growing as a black man in inner-city America still resonate.
In a live conversation with MSNBC’s Michael Eric Dyson at George Washington University, the “If I Ruled the World” emcee spoke about the lack of passion from artists who are afraid to push the envelope when discussing serious topics in their lyrics.
“I don’t see enough emcees who are brave enough to be honest. I would like to see more of that. There’s a lot of good stuff, and there’s a lot of bad in rap. The socially conscious stuff can come off sometime as preachy, so a lot of people tend to stay away from it. It ain’t their bag. That’s not what they do. But still they kind of have some artistic responsibility to do more than what’s the latest trend,” he said.
Citing KRS -One, Chuck D and Brand Nubian as his inspirations, Nas’ said his benchmark for success as an emcee was to be able to have a message in his music.
“Imagine me trying to come in that rap game at 19 years old. It was impossible,” said Nas. ” I had to do something that mattered, or I would not have gotten that respect from [the rapper at the time]. If I didn’t get that respect from them it was over. But now it’s a lot easier.”
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