Tagged: nas + lifeisgood

The past week brought about a bit of buzz for the release of Nas' latest video for "Bye Baby". The final track on Life Is Good also happens to by my favorite from the album, so it is great to get some visual representation to accompany it. With Salaam Remi and Noah "403 Shebib behind the boards, and Nas on his grown man lyrical tip, there wasn't much that could go wrong with this track. As is the case with these crisp visuals as well. Watch the video down below and let [...]

Following a series of albums—that included a couple of controversy-baiting solo projects and a lukewarm collaborative effort with Damian Marley—on which he seemed to lose himself to conceptual experimentation, Life [...] The post "A Queens Story" - Review Of Nas' Life Is Good appeared first on The Smoking Section .

In which Deen plays God. Its been approximately six weeks since I heard and later bought Nas', Life Is Good . In that time, I've probably given the album around 110 listens - top to bottom (makes me wonder how I managed to listen to anything else). It's safe to say that like most observers, I dig it. So much so that I even got halfway through an effusive "review" of the album, but I decided to quit writing straight-up reviews a while ago. Can't fully explain that decision, but you aren't here [...]

Jonah Bromwich made Rick Ross take off his sunglasses for this picture. So Nas just made one of rap’s first great mature albums. It’s hard to explain what “mature” conjures in connection to rap. At best, mature albums are  showcases for craftsmanship and deft rhyming that don’t stick in your mind unless you give them total attention. Most often, they’re tedious and pedantic. So how did Nas avoid this fate? Simple. Life is Good is gangster as shit. After all, if there was even one senior in the [...]

Transitional periods in life often times provide the greatest lessons. For practically all of 2012, much of my time has been spent in the air and/or highway attending weddings of [...]

"You take your chain off, you live your real life." Nas paid a visit to Big Boy's Neighborhood recently and was asked to explain his success.  Nas, who just released his 10th album in Life Is Good, greatly attributed his success and longevity to taking his craft serious and never letting his ego get too big.  He told Big Boy, "I never became bigger than the music."  Nas is celebrated as one of the best to ever do it, earning a top 5 spot in pretty much everybody's top 5, even the most crotchety of rap fans.  Nas [...]

Nas - Life Is Good By Richard Wink Nas has been cursed ever since he fired such a deafening opening salvo. Containing quotable rhymes, compelling storytelling and raw timeless beats,  Illmatic is considered to be a hip hop masterpiece. Nas, like most MC’s has always had a competitive streak running through his veins, and obviously felt a burning desire to better his debut, to get outside of Queens and take on the world. He couldn’t, but still he tried, and though he has created [...]

I can't get enough of this new "Life Is Good" album! There are so many good tracks on this new album that it's definitely in the top 3 Nas albums for me! If you haven't picked it up yet be sure to so you can let these labels know we still support good music from [...]

Something strange happens when a rapper pushes 40, they either become a reggae artist with Lion at the end of their name (Snoop Lion anybody?) or they stay loyal to the genre that made them famous. Thankfully, Nas keeps it hip-hop with his new album and, not only that, has managed to sell loads of records in doing so. He has been hit or miss with his last few albums; "Untitled" didn't quite live up to expectations but his collaboration LP with Damien Marley proved his creativity remains intact. So with this in mind I put on "Life Is.. [...]

Nas and Amy together again on Cherry Wine. Banging track from Nas’ latest effort, Life is Good. 

Remember when  Nas  was just a baby MC?  Illmatic  was released almost 20 years ago, and here he comes again with a flow you can't deny. Nas has been ranked as high as #4 on lists of the greatest MCs, and his new album,  Life is Good  is an exercise in emotional recovery and acceptance. Cherry Wine  is simple and smooth with a steady kick drum and the occasional saxophone. Echoes from  Amy Winehouse  come through, finding a place both haunting and uplifting. The two spend the track in a tagteam of loneliness and reassurance. [...]

• Nas - Cherry Wine

For all intents and purposes, Nas’ legacy in hip hop is set in stone. Without question, a top 10 emcee to ever bless the microphone. His Illmatic lp might be the greatest album of all time, depending on who you talk to. Countless hip hop quotables and verses to his name. He really doesn’t have to release any more music and yet he continues to do so because he loves the art form. He’s had some misfires in his storied 20+ year career, but for the most part, his catalogue [...]

I usually wouldn’t recommend a Nas album. Furthermore, I would usually never write a full article on a blog, which more often than not focuses on so called “hipster bands.” But today, I think I have to break that rule. Nas’ latest album Life is Good  is appropriately good. Though, like all middle school graduates in Berkeley, CA who know the lyrics to the song “I Can,” I have never been a Nas fan. Now at the age of 38, Nas has recorded eight consecutive albums [...]

Nas is universally appreciated as one of the all time great MCs, and represents an era of Hip Hop when all was good, so it was fairly disappointing to see none of the equally legendary producers make the credits either and I'm sure many fans had dreams of Nas reunited with Pete Rock, Q-Tip and others who contributed to Illmatic. One name particularly conspicuous by his absence is of course DJ Premier who provided the production on 'New York State Of Mind', but Nas explains that Premo's style wouldn't flow with the album - and that they're "cooking up something.. [...]

Doc Zeus rocks Roberto Cavalli/no shirt on/convertible Mazy I can’t get past that cover. Here is an accomplished man, impeccably tailored with the watch and liquor to match, sequestered in the back room of a lavish night club. He sits lonesome. A green wedding dress has been carefully laid across his lap while he stares off intently into the distance. The phrase, “Life Is Good,” is written in an elegant script below his designer shoes. as if to suggest some bitter irony about the direction his life has gone. At first glance, it's [...]

Nasir Bin Olu Dara Jones aka Nasty Nas is finally back with his first independent album since his controversial Untitled album (2008). And after taking it all in, I can't help but notice the amount of thought and the man himself that went into this album. Produced largely by No I.D. and Salaam Remi, you get all of Nas in this one-his fears, his dreams, his troubled past, his headaches from fame, his perception of riches, and his pain. Compared to his previous albums, Nas features the women in, and out, of his life [...]

Nas - Life Is Good Def Jam: 2012 Nebulous background chatter among hip-hop’s cognescenti would have us believe that Nas’ musical output since his classic debut has defined the hip-hop law of diminishing returns. I have certainly bought into the assessment. And this coming from a head who in fact heard  Illmatic  after  It Was Written , loved the latter to a high degree, but had his total outlook on ‘90s New York City boom-bap (not to mention the very ethos of the artist in question) corrected upon hearing the former. At [...]

Listening to it as I post, but so far so good. The intro is crazy. He talks about Biggie. Buy here .

Photo by G. Rapper Nas' latest album "Life is Good" came out on July 17, 2012 and he celebrated the release by stopping by The Colbert Report in NYC.  Surrounded by a horde of fans, Nas did his best to accommodate his fans by signing autographs as he left the building.  Shockingly, in the mob [...]

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