It was Written: A Review of Nas' Sophomore Album

On Jay-Z's now-famous 2001 diss record of Nas, "The Takeover", Jay-Z rapped about his one-time rival, "one Illmatic/That's a one hot album every ten year average" This is the album that Jay-Z asserts was "ehh." Unfortunately, that assessment is largely correct.

Nas' second album, It Was Written, was released to considerable anticipation. Much has been written about the quality and influence of Nas' 1994 debut album Illmatic; expectations were at a feverish pitch when his follow-up was released two years later. Like many of the Mafia themed rap albums of the mid-nineties, such as Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt, and Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx, It Was Written deals with ambition and its perils, but in a much more romanticized way than those other albums. Here, Nas has cast himself as "Nas Escobar" a larger-than life character of epic proportions, one who is equal parts Tony Montana and Michael Corleone. But this Nas largely fails to connect with the listener because his persona is often so over the top, the claims so outrageous that one feels as if he merely cribbed much of his work from gangster movies. As a result, Nas' considerable insight into inner-city New York, as evidenced on his debut, is subsumed by an abundance of posturing.

The album's lead single Street Dreams, deals with the success possible from illicit activity, but fails to even allude to the perils or consequences. Similarly, the cinematically vivid and lyrically intricate Take It In Blood further romanticizes criminal behavior, with Nas bizarrely rapping as if he is Michael Corleone circa The Godfather III.

However, though the Nas Escobar persona proliferates, there are hints of the Nas of Illmatic, the thoughtful, socially aware poet, the rapper people paid to hear-which creates considerably thematic confusion. I Gave You Power, wherein Nas raps from the perspective of a handgun and delivers a compelling message about black-on-black violence, over a brooding DJ Premier beat, is a classic hip-hop record, and along with Black Girl Lost, displays the same kind of social awareness as One Love or Memory Lane from his debut. Suspect resembles a darker version of One Time 4 Your Mind from Illmatic. The use of imagery is as striking here as they have ever been.

His wordplay and rhyme schemes on The Message and Take It in Blood are as deep and rich as those on his debut. And his storytelling abilities did not suffer in those two years; in fact that are considerably richer here. Songs such as I Gave You Power, The Message, and Black Girl Lost are as vivid and complex as any storytelling rap released during the mid-nineties.

But Nas' lyrically complexity is more often than not underserved by his production. Some commercial tracks are bogged down by Nas' multisyllabic musings; elsewhere Nas' lyrics don't fit with the harder beats that dominate the latter half of the album. Other tracks suffer from saccharine hooks, such as Nas is Coming and Black Girl Lost, or from Nas' own overly complex hooks.

Nas is never outshined by guests though it feels as if his crew, the Firm, is trying too hard to prove their street credibility on Affirmative Action (especially Foxy Brown). Hardcore rappers Mobb Deep who appear elsewhere, effortlessly exude style, grit and menace. If I Ruled the World, the album's most successful single, featuring (the ultra-popular at the time) Lauryn Hill, might have benefited from a Lauryn Hill verse in addition to a hook. The song provides a provocative, if inherently contradictory, socio-economic vision of capitalist excess in a socialist utopia.

In spots, It Was Written is compelling; in others it is jarringly diffuse-both sonically and lyrically. And while hip-hop is in part an autobiographical art, rap artists frequently employ poetic license, and people are inherently contradictory, this does not feel like an honest misfire. It feels like nothing so much more than derivation being passed off as inspiration. This is a shame as the album as a whole is beneath Nas' considerable talents. The standout records here do not shine amongst others; they only mitigate and just barely justify the purchase of an album that had so much promise. This is one for Nas and nineties hip-hop fans only.

Buy It Was Written here:

Amazon

CD Universe

Buy.com

Borders

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Sources

Jason Birchmeier, Nas - Biography, Allmusic.com