Blindspotting: Nas, "Illmatic"

The Legacy: Oh, like you need ME to tell you about the legacy of this album. But I guess I'm the one who put this section here, so I only have myself to blame for whatever sadly insufficient hooey dribbles forth. Here goes: Released in the spring of 1994, Nas' debut album was immediately hailed by critics as the arrival of a fully formed new talent — even as hip-hop heads were already so well aware of his talents that rampant pre-release bootlegging allegedly contributed to the record's ultimately disappointing sales.

Illmatic isn't Nas' best-selling LP, but its shadow has loomed over everything he's done since. This certainly isn't to say subsequent releases have been uniformly disappointing — far from it — but it remains the standard that the rest of his records have been held up to. To be fair, it's also been the standard for a lot of other hip-hop albums; three decades on, it's widely if not nearly universally regarded as one of the genre's most unimpeachably brilliant works.

First Impressions: I was most certainly not a hip-hop head in 1994, which is why I was only dimly, peripherally aware of the Nas phenomenon during Illmatic's year of release. By the time his recording career well and truly took off, I think I felt a little like I'd missed my window, and I just never bothered to go back and check it out; in fact, while I've absorbed some of his stuff thanks to cultural osmosis, this is the first full-length Nas album I've ever heard.

After listening to it all day, I have to say I'm glad for that. Not because I haven't enjoyed Illmatic — I absolutely have — but because it's a fantastic introduction. As countless critics have already enthused, this is just about perfect as an artistic statement of intent; from Nas' lyrics to the seamlessly assembled production by committee, it tells you everything you need to know about his perspective as an artist and human being.

It's also admirably lean and tight — there are no throwaway cuts, no momentum-killing between-song skits. Including the brief intro "The Genesis," the whole thing weighs in at ten tracks (perfect album length!) and a few hairs less than 40 minutes. As a wild-eyed lunatic I once worked for was (and probably is) fond of saying: All killer, no filler.

Hidden Gems: There's no such thing as a hidden gem where Illmatic is concerned — entire fucking books have been written about this album. Equally importantly, the distance between its highs and lows is really incredibly small; even "The Genesis" is more layered with meaning than one might be tempted to assume. Take it from an old white dude who grew up in the suburbs thousands of miles from Queensbridge Houses: Even if you don't love hip-hop, you can listen to this whole thing from start to finish on repeat for an entire day, be transported, and continually hear new stuff as the hours go by.