http://www.rhapsody.com/goto?rcid=art.539&rws=%2Fnas%2Fmusic-videos.rssNas is hip-hop's poet laureate, the flashpoint for all the love, hate, respect, controversy and consciousness heaped upon the genre. His debut album, <I>Illmatic</I>, is considered by many to be hip-hop's high water mark. On songs such as "Memory Lane" and "One Love," Nas sounded as he could've been 60 or 16, a shortie on the corner slinging rock or a revolutionary on the capitol steps. But the Queensbridge emcee is too talented to be contained by one style, and successive albums (most notably 1996's <I>It Was Written</I>) found him experimenting with the highly stylized mafioso fantasies that became the genre's bread and butter. After the slaying of Biggie and Pac, Nas risked his legacy with a string of albums that ranged from painfully bad (<I>Nastradamus</I>) to mediocre (<I>I Am...</I>). Fortunately, the emcee's time in the desert was limited, and 2001's <I>Stillmatic</I> announced a revitalized Nas; 2002's strong <I>God's Son</I> and 2004's politically prickly <I>Street's Disciple</I> were similarly great. When he declared "hip-hop is dead" on the 2006 album of the same name, the world listened. Originally titled <i>N*gg*r</i>, his untitled 2008 album was characteristically contentious. - Sam ChennaultLyricalen720Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:49:44 -0800 http://static.realone.com/rotw/images/logo_rhapsody_113x22.gif http://www.rhapsody.com/goto?rcid=art.539&rws=%2Fnas%2Fmusic-videos.rss Nas is hip-hop's poet laureate, the flashpoint for all the love, hate, respect, controversy and consciousness heaped upon the genre. His debut album, <I>Illmatic</I>, is considered by many to be hip-hop's high water mark. On songs such as "Memory Lane" and "One Love," Nas sounded as he could've been 60 or 16, a shortie on the corner slinging rock or a revolutionary on the capitol steps. But the Queensbridge emcee is too talented to be contained by one style, and successive albums (most notably 1996's <I>It Was Written</I>) found him experimenting with the highly stylized mafioso fantasies that became the genre's bread and butter. After the slaying of Biggie and Pac, Nas risked his legacy with a string of albums that ranged from painfully bad (<I>Nastradamus</I>) to mediocre (<I>I Am...</I>). Fortunately, the emcee's time in the desert was limited, and 2001's <I>Stillmatic</I> announced a revitalized Nas; 2002's strong <I>God's Son</I> and 2004's politically prickly <I>Street's Disciple</I> were similarly great. When he declared "hip-hop is dead" on the 2006 album of the same name, the world listened. Originally titled <i>N*gg*r</i>, his untitled 2008 album was characteristically contentious. - Sam Chennault