Album: Life is Good
Artist: Nas
Released: July 17, 2012
It has been a long while since we’ve heard from God’s Son- since the release of his ‘Untitled’ album in 2008. His latest release, Life is Good delivers on what all the Nas stans wanted it to be. Nas has stated that “This is music that I just put together, I’m praying will be the inspiration for my brothers that’s in the rap game. I think a lot of us are confused about who we are. It’s important that we stay ten toes down at all time… Fuck pop, fuck all that shit. We don’t imitate pop, pop imitates us! So that’s why we go back to the gutter…” and this is exactly what he did.
Nas bodied this album and took it back to the streets- to that old New York hip hop sound that has been missing for a minute. It’s a different stage now in Hip Hop then in 1994 when Illmatic came out and listening to Life is Good conveys some of the themes hip hop fans first fell in love with when we first heard Illmatic knocking in the speakers.
Nas collabs with Rick Ross on “Accidental Murdereres”, in which he talks about gun violence and how innocent victims are in the crossfire.
“You thought you had it planned/ you thought you had your man/He saw you coming, he ran when you tried to blast that man/You missed him by inches, he sprinted/Some of his boys on the corner was who your bullets entered/Two of ‘em pull through but one didn’t, son’s finished…”.
Nas spits real shit that makes you think and this song is no exception. Its sad to say Ricky went a little off subject but still a dope track none the less.
The project starts to take a more soulful turn where Nas gets personal for the track “Daughters.” This song talks about the trials and tribulations of a father raising a little girl:
“I saw my daughter send a letter to some boy her age/Who locked up/First I regretted it then caught my rage like/How could I not protect her from this awful phase/Never tried to hide who I was, she was taught and raised like a princess/ but while I’m on stage I can’t leave her defenseless…”
It’s honest, genuine, and completely different from anything out there in the game.
Now once you hear the “Cherry Wine” track you know that its definitely a song for the ladies. Nas drops bars on this jazzy track about coming across that perfect someone who is just like you but all in all you never find them. As soon as you hear Amy Winehouse’s voice singing: Where is he/The man who was just like me/I heard he was hiding somewhere I can’t see/And I’m alone and I realize that when I get home/I wanna go through my red and my cherry…” you know that this collaboration was destined.
Just like the album, “Bye Baby” is a song that’s is genuinely inspired by the rocky relationship and divorce from his ex-wife Kelis and in this track Nas gets very personal-on the verge of autobiographical- and the heavy R&B production of super producers Salaam Remi and Noah “40” Sabib go great with Nas’s in depth storytelling skills about how a relationship between a man and a woman can go from a storybook romance to hostile fights and eventually resenting each other:
“Bye baby, I guess you know why I had to leave/Seven months in your pregnancy, ’bout to have my seed/Let’s take it back some years, rewind it to the happy years…”
as if hip hop fans needed even more reasons to cop this album. Do yourself a favor and get it here .
-Courtney Deleon
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