John Lennon or Paul McCartney? LL Cool J or Kool Moe Dee? Eminem or Moby? Kid Rock or Radiohead? Liam Gallagher or Robbie Williams? David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar? Biggie or TuPac? Rock and Rap (and soul, too) have a long history of long-running feuds, often resulting in diatribes of venom and vit on vinyl, instigating even more tirades in the form of answer record after answer record (or public media feud, but I prefer the latter, as the music's better). The Brooklyn born-and-bred gangster rapper Nas is no stranger to professional feuds, as for close to ten years his sparring partner was Jay-Z (the two have since amicably put a stop to it). I mention this here to highlight the difference between the two--the musical difference.
Jay-Z's music is much more poppier than Nas's--and I'm not using that adjective as a pejorative. Jigga has--up to this point in time--the strongest ear for hooks of any one rapper in the history of the business (Kanya West is quickly gaining on him, but Kanye's forte is production anyway; he's nowhere near Jigga--or most other mainstream rappers--in terms of verbal skill and flow and cadence and voice), and therefore, he's had many more singles cross over into the mainstream market (think about it: when's the last time you heard Nas on pop radio?). He understands the contemporary market better than any other rapper ever has, and he likes to have a little bit of fun on record. He's no sell-out, though; he's just a great pop musician who happens to rap really well.
Jay-Z has oft been accused, though, of not being street enough (especially on his latter records), of his music not sounding tough enough. Nas has been one of Jigga's prime accusers (though by no means the only one), and listeners often pay him (Nas) creedence as Nas's music--at least on the Billboard Rap Charts (and on the album charts as well)--has been the only rapper to seriously challenge Hova's supremacy (up until very recently, when Lil' Wayne came along). Nas's records have (mostly) been lauded by critics, and his lyrics are as tough as they come. His music is too, though, and for some, that's a plus; however, Nas has made very little concession to the pop markets, and his music is often not just muscular tough, but thick and (sometimes) inscrutable as well, with the hooks minimal, subtle and nasty, sunk deep within the grooves, and often the only hook is in the verbal cadence, as Nas seems to be a very proud artist, one not willing to let a pop hook overshadow his message or his narrative or the serious nature of his music.
This lack of audio accessibility makes many of Nas's individual records lousy singles; the narratives are often unforgiving, offering either violence, violent fantasy, or inner-city blues with only a nascent ray of hope. These records aren't immediate; they don't offer easy inroads, and they're difficult to like (though not difficult to appreciate, especially upon multiple listens, which most of them require). In Nas's world, Mighty Casey is seemingly always about to strike out; there's little joy in his Mudville, and that's even before the last pitch is thrown. He's rap's Richard Wright.
Most of Nas's music is closest in kin to latter-day Sly and the Family Stone, whose records were swamped with tempered pessimism and a miasma of drug refences and thick-as-molasses production values. The lyrics, though, were honest and hard-hitting (and the music reflected this). Nas's records are similar in those aspects. On each of his albums, 90% of the tracks are album cuts in-and-of themselves. They don't reside in singles charts--at least, not in my world they don't. They just don't fit (and that's not a knock, either). They reside elsewhere. Thus, this single represents Nas's only showing on this chart. Just thought I'd explain why.
Here, in "One Mic," Nas offers us one of his two most positive records (and one of his two or three most accessible, and one of his two-or-three catchiest), but that optimism comes at a price: realization that success will not come easily, and that his inner rage will forever build, and that life in the inner city is never getting better, and that if he ever forgets his saving grace, he'll be dead. Nas also gives us a brilliantly produced and structured song: the matching crescendo of volume and speed in music and voice is masterful, especially when Nas reaches his calming epiphany by religiously chanting his mantra: "All I need is one mic." The chaos and clatter stop for his recitation, the sounds of (near) silence replicating the peace he's found.
Nas may not be the hitmaster (or maybe even rapper) Jay-Z is, but that doesn't mean he's not Jigga's equal. In many ways, he's that and more.
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