All-time rap greats Nas and DJ Premier have been working collectively for greater than three a long time. Premier produced three of the ten tracks on Nas’ almighty 1994 debut Illmatic, and the 2 have made a whole lot of head-knockers collectively since then. (Biggie Smalls additionally allegedly dissed Nas over a Premier beat on his 1997 tune “Kick In The Door.”) For a particularly very long time, Nas and Premier have been teasing a full-length collaboration. In 2006. the 2 of them even appeared collectively on the quilt of the long-defunct journal Scratch. However the album by no means materialized.
On the thirtieth anniversary of Illmatic final 12 months, Nas as soon as once more promised a full-length collaboration and shared the one “Outline My Title.” A 12 months after that, Nas’ Mass Enchantment label introduced Legend Has It…, a sequence of recent albums from rap legends, a lot of that are posthumous. At this time, that sequence reaches its conclusion as Mild-Years, the long-promised Nas/Preemo document, lastly makes its method into the world.
And it is good! Or it is fairly good, anyway. It is all the time nice to listen to Nas’ nimble, gravelly voice over Premier’s crisp, exact instrumentals. The collaboration would’ve undoubtedly been higher if it occurred in 1996, however that is true of nearly the whole lot. At this time, we have now to repeatedly hear Nas name himself “cryptocurrency Scarface,” which wasn’t cool when he first mentioned it 4 years in the past. Additionally, “NY State Of Thoughts Pt. 3” samples Billy Joel’s “New York State Of Thoughts,” in addition to their unique collab “NY State Of Thoughts,” and it is somewhat too cute. But when you will get previous a number of the sillier selections, it is beautiful to listen to these two veterans again collectively. Additionally, the one visitor on the album is AZ, who was the one visitor on Illmatic. I really like that. Stream Mild-Years under.
Mild-Years is out now on Mass Enchantment. DJ Premier teamed up with Roc Marciano for the collaborative album Armani Part earlier this 12 months.
