Nas is, if you didn't know, one of the last decades biggest hip hop legends. 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. 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.
It follows pretty much a chronological order, except with all the Hype Williams videos lumped together, and You Owe Me feat. Ginuwine a little late in the piece, but the order is good.
Starting off with three tracks off Illmatic, you get to see much of Nas' connection to his neighbourhood in the locations of the videos. 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. 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.
Then of course, comes a very critically maligned period of his career. His third and 4th albums are considered rather wack, and for pretty good reason. 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. 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. 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). 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.
The last 4 videos get better though and leave you feeling OK with Nas overall. 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. 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. Finishing with two recent videos from the Gods Son album Made You Look and I Can, Nas ends on not only a positive note for the listeners, but with a sense of hope that Nas really has been appointed to "bring rap justice" and take it from the lull that its been in the not-so underground of late.
Easily the best part of this DVD is the inclusion of commentary from Nas himself on all but one of the videos this adds context as well as a few laughs and interesting tidbits you find that Nas genuinely does care about what music he makes, and talks quite well of the controversy that the video for Hate Me Now created, of his latest tracks, as well as adding a really nicely personal feel to the collection. Hearing him talk of the old tracks and the new, such as shooting the video for It Ain't Hard To Tell and the similar yet decade later Made You Look adds much to the value of this DVD, and its a commendable and engaging feature.
For Nas fans this is a genuinely good collection the commentary adds much value, and the videos are always quite good few resorting to scantily clad video ho's, and some downright entertaining.
