There’s a scene in Time Is Illmatic, a 2014 documentary about the creation of Nas’s 1994 masterwork Illmatic, where the rapper walks around the Queensbridge projects where he grew up, camera crew in tow. A woman in the neighborhood calls out, “Hey, Nas!” He gallantly responds, “What’s up, baby!” It’s a clichéd scene – the rich celebrity who hasn’t forgotten where he came from – yet it still resonates. His onetime rival Jay-Z couldn’t touch down in Brooklyn’s Marcy Projects like that.
At age 52, Nas has cast himself as a humble rap GOAT, acutely conscious of his influence yet deceptively undervalued. When Complex asked when he would follow in the footsteps of Dr. Dre and Kendrick Lamar as a Super Bowl halftime performer, he demurred, chuckling, “Why would I do that? Leave it to the professionals.” He’s scored five number one albums on the Billboard albums chart but never landed a solo Hot 100 top 10 single. No one seems to wonder why he isn’t in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside contemporaries like A Tribe Called Quest, Salt-N-Pepa, and Outkast, although his approach to writing on Illmatic proved just as revolutionary, if not more so, than those justly lionized acts. Eminem may have recorded “Stan,” but it was Nas who turned Em’s character into slang for an overzealous fan on “Ether” and made it an everyday catchphrase. Since he never quite broke into the pop mainstream, it takes immersion in hip-hop culture to understand how much he’s contributed to it.
Since 2020 and King’s Disease, Nas has collated his memories into albums reminiscent of Shakespeare’s late romances, where he declares his faith in the transformative power of hip-hop, positing it as a secular religion. On “Junkie,” a track from his new Light-Years collaboration with DJ Premier, he says he’s an “808 junkie.” He waxes nostalgic about the childhood technique of using cassettes – pressing play and taping a few bars from a vinyl record, pressing the pause button on the cassette player, then pressing play and re-recording the same notes – to make homespun beats on “Pause Tapes.” For “NY State of Mind Pt. 3,” a fresh installment of a series that began with “N.Y. State of Mind” on Illmatic, Premo plays an excerpt from Billy Joel’s 1976 track “New York State of Mind.” (Nas recently lent commentary to the acclaimed Billy Joel documentary And So It Goes.) Nas uses the occasion to reminisce about an era when rap dudes rocked concert stages surrounded by dozens of homies laughing, smoking weed, and throwing bows. “Take me back again/Before ice around me/On stage performing while they fightin’ around me/Later, somebody gun pop/The good ol’ days,” he raps.
Light-Years arrives as the long-awaited full-length pairing between two hip-hop icons and serves as a nightcap to Mass Appeal’s yearlong “Legend Has It…” series, following installments from Slick Rick, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah, Mobb Deep, Big L, and De La Soul. But it’s also akin to Nas’s King’s Disease and Magic trilogies with producer Hit-Boy. The vibe is elegiac, and Nas’s tone is placidly content, as if he’s dropping jewels on his nephews and nieces at the dinner table after a family meal. DJ Premier’s chops are sturdy, if not as memorably toothsome as his gems for Nineties stars like his group Gang Starr, KRS-One, and the Notorious B.I.G. It’s old-head music for a year when the old heads refused to retire, from Clipse zealously promoting their comeback Let God Sort Em Out to Danny Brown extending his support to hyperpop’s queer underground on Stardust. Fans can debate whether these forty and fifty-somethings take up too much space and prevent a younger crop of acts less enamored with old-school ethics from emerging out of their shadows. Meanwhile, there’s sheer pleasure in hearing Nas and AZ trade bars on “My Story Your Story,” especially when they start ribbing each other about Queens arcana like Delancey Street and Albee Square Mall near the end of the track. It’s like 1994 and “Life’s a Bitch” all over again.
One can quibble which, if any, of Nas’s exercises in nostalgia truly stands out. King’s Disease was sadly overshadowed by ex-wife Kelis’s public allegations of domestic abuse; by King’s Disease II and III, Nas and Hit-Boy had established an easy rhythm that felt effortlessly charming. On Light-Years, Nas and Premier clearly aren’t at the bleeding edge of their craft anymore. Premier tries to mix Joel’s “State of Mind” with his own Illmatic rendition, but the result sounds forced and awkward. The bass thrum on “Madman” can’t match the pulsating Erick Sermon-like bounce of Gang Starr’s “DWYCK.” Thankfully, Nas mostly avoids the weird lyrical couplets that made him a favorite target of bar students over the decades. “So many new chicks I wish I was born with two…oops/I take that line back,” he raps self-deprecatingly on “Shine Together.” But he can’t help but spin another concept piece on “Nasty Esco Nasir,” the latest in a career of unwieldly concepts that range in quality from 1996’s “I Gave You Power,” written from the perspective of a gun, to 2019’s self-explanatory “Jarreau of Rap (Skatt Attack).” Here, he turns two of his personas – his early Nineties “streets disciple” Nasty Nas and his late-Nineties “Mafioso” Nas Escobar – into antagonists that murder each other, only for the real Nasir to appear. “I’m a father, philanthropist, film director, an author/Tech impresario, Resorts World Casino partner/A restauranteur/By the time you hear this song I’ll probably open up a whole new store,” he boasts. For all its machinations, the track works.
Throughout Light-Years, Nas and Premier portray themselves as men who’ve accomplished their goals in life, leaving music-making as a vehicle for sheer pleasure. One can argue how accurate that image may be. Premier has produced three projects this year, including this, The Reinvention with Ransom, and The Coldest Profession with Roc Marciano. Both he and Nas still love the communality that rap fandom affords, and they crave our attention.
Yet the overriding feeling of Light-Years is of two elder statesmen who still have gifts to share. When Nas shouts out dozens of musicians on “Bouquet (To the Ladies), from pioneers like Sha-Rock and Debbie Dee to new jacks like Ice Spice, Che Noir, Saweetie, and ScarLip, it feels heartwarming and generous, the sign of an all-time great who understands there’s a culture and tradition that’s bigger than him. He may be a self-described “mogul” now, but he’s showing us that he can still touch grass.
