By Odeisel
What is the difference between evolution and revolution? Evolution takes elements that exist and moves them on to a form more easily prepared for the modern era.
No matter what the stealth bomber can do, it doesn’t exist without the basic principles of the Wright brothers’ Kitty Hawk special.
Revolution is the change of all that came before. Revolution is the departure from convention. Where once there were colonies, now stand the United States. The erasure of what existed in order to set a new paradigm.
On April 19th, 1994 the flawless synthesis of evolution and revolution combined at the perfect time to create one of our greatest works of art: Illmatic.
Like the journey from ape to man, Hip-Hop had undergone various phases of evolutionary advancement from the party checking of DJ’s to the first trinity of MC’s Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee and Grandmaster Caz, to the second trinity of Kane Rakim and Kool G. Rap. Of course there were evolutionary offshoots, and different strains. Like Bird Flu and Swine Flu it spread across the nation and evolved, spreading from party to party and back yard to yard. The powerful Boom Bap strain gave way to the G-Funk strain, which infected swap meets, barbeques and cars everywhere, even affecting suburban youth with murderous melody.
The West Coast had produced a particularly potent strain that took hold of MTV, college campuses, and vernacular. Musically muscling both high quality sound and the gangsta aesthetic to places before untouched, the virus was seemingly unstoppable. Sales were through the roof, influence was becoming global, and all previous strains were left to their evolutionary dead ends. Nature has a way of dealing with stagnation. Coal becomes diamond. Giraffes get longer necks and we get opposable thumbs. That which does not change must die.
Society takes a different approach to change. Where in evolution new supplants old, in society revolution forms to remove the old world. In this time, and in this place, four mad scientists performed surgery on burgeoning Queensbridge prodigy Nasir Jones to produce a strain that would not only take what had existed as Boom Bap a step forward, but would serve as notice that nothing musically could return to the previous point.
Illmatic is the Frankenstein monster of Hip-Hop albums, combining the production of veterans Pete Rock, Q-Tip, and DJ Premier with the burgeoning talents of The Large Professor and L.E.S. to provide the soul for wonderchild Nas to deliver perhaps the most important album of the post Public Enemy era.
Before Illmatic, groups and MC’s generally had in house production. There may have been a guest spot but in general, every group had a native sound. Even in other regions you had Dr. Dre, Sir Jinx, DJ Quik and others creating their own mini movements. Never before had that many prominent producers collaborated on one album, particularly for a new MC who had never dropped an album. There was no Juice Crew to back him up, no BDP posse. No N****s With Attitude No Suge Knight or No Puffy to dance with. Nas would have to do the bulk of the heavy lifting lyrically, mainly by himself. And the revolution began.
Hip-Hop had always had elements of the trappings of wealth. Even in the grit of Mel’s Message he wished for that color TV so he could watch the fight. Nas wasn’t concerned with any of that. The rhymes were concerned with reflecting his gritty reality. By 1994 MC Shan was long gone, and other Bridge luminaries and their Cold Chillin’ cousins had begun to fade into obscurity. KRS’s proclamation was indeed prophetic, and the glorious days were indeed gone.
Like a child at the center of Hell seeking salvation and screaming for rescue to anyone who would listen, Nas weaved poetic verse after verse evoking his dystopia of broken project elevators, urine stained staircases, imprisoned friends, guns drugs and mayhem.
Unlike similar stories where such conditions are worn like a badge of honor, Nas emitted regret and an air of hopeless resignation. It was not something to glorify or aspire to, it was something to escape or retire from and Nas unashamedly excused himself from complicity. He loved committing sins with youthful ignorance but his FRIENDS sold crack; a poet forced to adapt to a dangerous reality. And that was just lyrical depth.
Technically, the album was a flawlessly executed. It was perfectly sequenced, opening with an ode to the past with the appropriately titled “Genesis” which referenced Wildstyle in homage as Nas bid goodbye to the past and ushered in the future.
Nas forced the mainstream back to reality. No more nonsensical rhymes would be taken seriously; deading whimsical rap as completely as Springsteen deaded disco almost two decades earlier. The sing-songy flows would serve no better in the path of Illmatic’s verbal onslaught. The bar had been officially raised lyrically and the cracked door to the 36th Chamber was blown off the hinges by the revolution. Jones managed to crystallize so many themes and moods.
He was at once a lost soul searching for redemption, an unrepentant rebel of the streets, invincible in his youth and numbed by ignorance, an indifferent resigned observer to societal urban ills, and a member of a disenfranchised underclass; poisoned by societal needs and desires and aspirations yet perpetually unable to attain them by legal and conventional means. And the cherry on top? He did it in ten songs and less than 40 minutes.
And so, the word became flesh and Illmatic infected not only the fans, but the entire machine itself. And that is the most irrepressible quality of a classic. It is the line of demarcation between before and after. It shuts the door on the inferior and lights the path towards a brighter future. Simply put, a classic album in its purest essence and devoid of hype, makes the impossible possible.
More than any album of the past 15 years, with apologies to Aquemini and a couple other really genre stretching attempts, Illmatic has made the impossible possible. It changed the way we consumed, it changed the way Hip-Hop albums were produced, and it moved the entire mechanism forward. It was our steam engine. Our cotton gin. Our nuclear reaction. We haven’t seen anything like it before its advent. Its arrival ushered in a second golden age, and its influence hasn’t been matched since. Happy 15, Illmatic. We patiently await your successor.
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