Nas

Nas captures post-crack N.Y.C. in all its ruinous glory on his landmark 1994 debut. Realizing that drugs were both empowering and destructive, his lyrics alternately embrace and reject the idea of ghetto glamour. "Life's a Bitch" is possibly the saddest hip-hop song ever recorded, while "The World Is Yours" finds optimism in the darkest urban crevices.

Roll down the windows on a summer Saturday and ride down New York's Broadway – from
the Bronx, where hip-hop was created, through Harlem and the Village, where it's
criticized and consumed, and down to Wall Street, where hit singles turn into big dollars
for the companies that market it. You'll find out who is the Man of the moment. As vibrantly
urban a street as exists in America, Broadway insists on being up-to-the-minute... More >

Street poet as realist-not-fabulist--staving off alienation and defeat with whatever you got, sex-and-violence not excluded ("It Ain't Hard To Tell," "Represent") (Grade - ***)