Nas’s 1994 debut album, Illmatic – a gritty document of Queens, New York, in the pits of a crack epidemic, characterised by complex rhymes over a haze of vintage funk, soul, and jazz samples – is hip-hop perfection. Huge sales, critical acclaim, academic books andan Oscar-tipped documentary have elevated it to near-mythical status.
The tone is slightly off from the start. Why, for instance, is Tim Westwood, the court jester of hip-hop, supporting at this plays-in-full show? (The audience boos, then cheers as his decks are removed from the stage.) But then there was never any foolproof approach for Nas to revisit a record so profoundly of its time. One-take wonder NY State of Mind marked a 20-year-old rapper’s arrival as a fearless, charismatic new force – well before his beef with Jay Z, divorce from Kelis and hit-and-miss later material – and is performed here with prosaic footage from cult 1970s exploitation movie The Warriors flickering in the background.
While certain tracks aren’t so much performed as merely invoked, the atmosphere remains deafeningly reverential. The crowd roar not only at the hooks to Halftime and Represent, but any time when DJ Green Lantern dips the fader. There’s a surreal moment before It Ain’t Hard to Tell, when Nas thanks Michael Jackson for letting him sample Human Nature, and insists we pause to listen to the original while admiring a picture of a young, afro-ed MJ.
Illmatic dispatched, we get another 40 minutes of material – much of it so-so – that brings Nas’s career up to date, though it does include heavyweights such as thug-life brag The Message and a floor-quaking If I Ruled the World (Imagine That). Evidently reluctant to be made a waxwork quite yet, Nas hails tonight’s nostalgia trip as feeling “like a fresh start” before closing with throwaway party bounce The Don, and leaves promising new music this year.
- At the Institute, Birmingham, on 4 June. Box office: 0844 844 0444.Then touring.
