Telling you why

Nas is a gangsta rapper who hears the promised land's call

by Matt Ashare

"Life's a bitch and then you die/That's why we get high/Because you never know when you're gonna go." With that singsong refrain, NYC rapper Nas told you all you needed to know about where he was coming from when his debut CD Illmatic (Columbia) hit the streets in 1994 . . . if you were listening. Slinging rhymes had always been about reporting from the front lines of the inner city, at least since 1988, when Public Enemy set the East Coast agenda with It Takes a Nation of Millions To Hold Us Back (Def Jam). But some of those news flashes were starting to sound more like the Weekly World News than slices of life. So Nas cut through the bullshit, carved away the hype, and calmly nailed his philosophical point against a wall made of beats as hard and dry as the asphalt that covers the ground around the notoriously grim Queensbridge housing project in Long Island City that he called home.

Nas's dizzying command of language, matter-of-fact delivery, and the understated wit that he brought to bear on his tales from the 'hood signaled to many that East Coast rap had found a new prophet to replace Chuck D. But that's history, just like the little vignette that Nas and his crew act out in the opening minutes of his sophomore disc, it was written (Columbia), which debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts a few weeks ago. "The promised land is calling me, man," Nas shouts against the cruel rhythm of whips cracking on the backs of slaves in what must be the Old South. "It's time we go. Hey man, hey damn these chains man . . . damn you master man."

The metallic rattle fades, an unadorned hip-hop groove takes over, and we're told, gravely, that it's 1996. The chains are gone, but the apocalypse is looming somewhere beyond the smog in the distance. You can feel it in the way Nas clenches his throat around each syllable of the word "millennium." What arrives, instead, is the gentle caress of an acoustic guitar arpeggio, a stern backbeat, and a flood of words so dense and forceful that it's hard to keep your mental balance. It's what Nas refers to as "verbal A-K spray," a barrage of tightly wound bundles of rhymes that whiz by like bullets and embed themselves among the unflinching beats of "The Message" and each of the other 13 tracks on it was written.

Nas, who was born Nasir Jones a little over 22 years ago, eschews the standard flash of gangsta rap: the over-the-top boasting about dollars and violence, the cartoonish oneupmanship. But he holds on to the raw materials of gangstadom -- the drugs and drive-bys, the bitches and the blood -- and makes them real again, stealing the gangsta iconography back from the surreal world of MTV. It's not just his words, which he unleashes in stream-of-consciousness torrents that recall the gritty, first-person cityscapes of Charles Bukowski. It's his deadpan delivery and the way he refuses to condone or condemn the violence and self-destruction that peppers his cinematic narratives.

For an emerging rap star who stood poised after the success of Illmatic for a major breakthrough, Nas keeps a remarkably low-key profile on it was written. His voice doesn't resonate with the baritone authority of Chuck D or Dr. Dre, it doesn't have the laid-back charisma of Snoop or Coolio, and he only rarely make himself the central character in his songs. One of his most affecting raps, "I Gave You Power," is delivered from the perspective of a gun that has seen one too many street fights and ended one too many lives. Only "Nas Is Coming" puts the spotlight on Nas. And that might have something to do with the fact that the tune was produced by Dr. Dre, who declares an "East meets West" truce in the song's opening moments.

Dre provides Nas with one of the few potential crossover tracks on it was written, thanks to his trademark supple synths and girl-group background harmonies. Eurythmics indirectly lend Nas another: "Street Dreams." It's a clever reworking of "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of These)" that picks up where Illmatic's "Life's a Bitch" left off, describing the philosophy of the gangsta in such cut-and-dried language that you can almost see the world through those paranoid eyes.

But it's Fugees singer Lauryn Hill who, with the sheer force of her clarion voice, pushes Nas into his most dynamic performance on the disc, "If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)." Hope and despair connect on that track, as Nas imagines "smokin' weed in the street without cops harassin' " and "the law with no undercovers." It's nice to hear him lighten up for a few minutes, even if underneath it all you can almost sense someone chanting, "Life's a bitch and then you die/That's why we get high . . . "