And when One Mic drops (a track Nas produced himself) you know the integrity that was implied during the Illmatic days was still alive inside of him. Starting with the video tribute to the deaths of Biggie and 2Pac, Got Yourself A is a much better video and a little more of an inventive style of structure than his efforts to that point. The last 4 videos get better though and leave you feeling OK with Nas overall. It's really clear to the viewer that Nas had, at this stage, lost his direction gone were the positive and well told story tracks, the underground beats and the grittiness it was just a decently flowing any-other-rap star making these tracks. Street Dreams follows this, a horrible yet lavishly shot Casino clip, and the two worst tracks on this whole collection clock in next Nastradamus and You Owe Me (feat Ginuwine). The track with Lauren Hill isn't too bad, but Hate Me Now, an insanely controversial video, should have been controversial due to the insipid Puff Daddy chorus. You can see Nas move away from the hooded parkers and baggy pants and into Gucci and Armani suits, to then finally collaborate with a couple of big name artists. His third and 4th albums are considered rather wack, and for pretty good reason. Then of course, comes a very critically maligned period of his career. When Nas Is Like drops, you can feel the excitement that must have abounded with his second albums coming, and that's represented with the scenes still in his neighbourhood and a distinctly laid back and underground feel to it all.

His early big beated, well rhymed tracks like It Ain't Hard To Tell and Halftime represent nicely on the visual medium, and One Love has a fantastically cinematic clip to really draw out the subject matter of a rather touching and personal song. Starting off with three tracks off Illmatic, you get to see much of Nas' connection to his neighbourhood in the locations of the videos. Ginuwine a little late in the piece, but the order is good. It follows pretty much a chronological order, except with all the Hype Williams videos lumped together, and You Owe Me feat. But his career isn't all Illmatic Nas's Video Anthology is a really excellent time line of the rise and fall and rise again of a NY street rapper lumped with much acclaim from the get go.

His first album, Illmatic, is considered by many to be the greatest hip hop record of all time even if you don't gush over it that much, there are few rappers who's flow and storytelling ability is as charming and consistent. Nas is, if you didn't know, one of the last decades biggest hip hop legends.

Nas hate me now classical music