Feel good hip hop this ain’t. Hip Hop high priest Nas has delivered a ferocious fire-and-brimstone sermon on what is his eighth long player and debut for Def Jam. The New York rapper divines inspiration from what he sees as the current perilous state of his preferred genre, laying waste to his contemporaries and their output with funereal fervour.
The brooding beats and harbinger-of-doom rhymes of ‘Money Over Bullshit’ set the tempo for the remainder of the record. ‘Carry On Tradition’ continues the sabre-rattling indignation, with Nas brilliantly bemoaning the current lack of respect for rap’s pioneers. If the album’s raison d’etre was to re-invent Nas as a rap Cassandra (or Nasandra even), prophesying disaster at every turn, it certainly succeeds.
The production, courtesy of Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, Dr.Dre and Kanye West, amongst others, is typically glossy, but with a veneer of gloomy intensity. The appearance of former-foe-and-now-friend Jay-Z on ‘Black Republican’ is backed by some moody orchestral ostentatiousness, while the lonely piano figures on ‘Ain’t Going Back’ are as stark as the song’s sentiment. The album loosens up a little with a typically louche appearance from Snoop Dogg on ‘Play On Playa’, and the misty eyed reverie of ‘Can’t Forget About You’, which deliciously samples Nat King Cole’s ‘Unforgettable’.
Nas may come across as a grumpy misanthrope on Hip Hop Is Dead – but his ear catching flow and selection of choice beats still mark him out from the rest of the rap rabble. If ‘hop really is dead, then Nas has delivered a fine eulogy.