Nas - I Am...
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Rolling Stone Rating: 3.5
"I'm at the Gambling spot/My hands on a knot/New York Yankees cap cover my eyes/Stand in one spot/ I take a nigga's dough/Send him home to his shoe box/You lost that, nigga/I'll put your dollar in a jukebox," Nas raps on "N.Y. State of Mind Pt. II." Since his much-heralded arrival, in 1994, Nasir Jones has raised the stakes for urban elocutionists with mood-setting lines like this scenario of a cool criminal scheming on a vic. But within these glam-meets-ghetto days of hip-hop, the best MCs are those who can pass off their tragic dichotomies as cool: Rage against the machine and subscribe to the Robb Report; fuck the world but respect her in the morning. "Dime's givin' fellatio/Siete zeros/Bet my nine spit for the pesos/But what's it all worth?/Can't take it with you under this earth/Rich men died and tried/But none of it worked/They just rob your grave/I'd rather be alive and paid," he observes on "Nas Is Like," from I Am . . ., his...
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