My Gut Reaction: Nas - Untitled (July 11, 2008)

Since we're fairly close to the five-year anniversary of this particular project, I figured it was about time to give Nasir Jones's controversial Untitled a spin.  Okay, so it's not because of the release date: that's just a huge fucking coincidence.  But with only two real projects left in Nasir's catalog to write about (as of this writing), now's as good a time as any to start finishing shit up.



So what more can I add to the Untitled saga that wasn't already mentioned in the Reader Review I ran apparently four years ago?  (Shit, seriously?)  The story of this project is one that is well-known to hip hop heads who frequent blogs and such, so I'll only hit the major point here: Nasir Jones originally wanted to call this project N---r.  Not the "-a" version that rappers gravitate toward, but the real, ugly version of the word, a loaded choice made with the conscious need to force the listener to confront the term, ugly truth and all, within the context of what is generally known as a "rap album".  

Now, obviously, this was never going to fly, as Nas is a mainstream artist signed to Def Jam Records, so it was eventually released as the otherwise-inoffensive Untitled, although the marks on the man's back on the album cover most certainly convey the imagery that he was attempting to conjure up.  So essentially, Nas pretended that he wanted to make everyone feel uncomfortable as fuck while listening to his work, when in reality he knew that giving his album a title that most publications would never print guaranteed him instant controversy, free publicity and high first-week record sales.

Title aside, though, what really matters is whether or not Nasir Jones had what it took to live up to the hype, relatively speaking.  With this post, I plan to prove that he ultimately did not.  (Fuck, I gave the ending away again!)

1.  QUEENS GET THE MONEY
Puzzling.  I quite liked Jay Electronica's piano-based instrumental, as it sounded a bit more experimental than what rappers would normally purchase for use.  But therein lies the problem: Nasir sounds entirely off-beat on "Queens Get The Money", his bars failing to connect with the audience because he constantly sounds like the beat is outpacing him at each checkpoint.  I found the reference to his now-ex Kelis to be both sweet and sad, and the rest of the short track follows suit: it isn't awful, but it never actually works, and Nas, unfortunately, has to actually try in order to be as effective as he believes himself to be.  Not the best start.

2.  YOU CAN'T STOP US NOW (FEAT. EBAN THOMAS (OF THE STYLISTICS) & THE LAST POETS)
The lone Salaam Remi production on Untitled isn't a boom-bap flashback or a hard-hitting street composition, but rather a competently-handled riff on The Whatnauts' "Message From A Blackman", a song which had already been sampled by The RZA (on Bobby Digital's "You Can't Stop Us Now", released in the same year) and MF Doom (for his alter ego King Geedorah's "Anti-Matter" in 2003), among many others, which isn't a bad thing, but also doesn't make this song very fucking memorable.  Nasir's lyrics immediately get lost in the shuffle no matter how hard he tries to force them doen the listener's gullet, as the familiarity of the sample on the instrumental trumps everything else in the goddamn universe, or at least on the track.  Sigh.

3.  BREATHE
Readers hoping that Nas finally got around to covering the Fabolous standard will have to keep holding their breath (no pun intended, but I'll take it anyway), as his "Breathe" is, instead, a two-verse trifle that plays a deep thought at parties, or at least it would like to.  Nasir's lyrics are so fucking generic that every single bar could have been plucked from another song in his vast catalog, and the beat prevents the full-on penetration into your subconscious because it sounds so fucking awful.  Did I just compare the instrumental to the preventative qualities of a condom?  You're goddamn right I did.  Let's move on quickly, folks, before it notices.

4.  MAKE THE WORLD GO ROUND (FEAT. THE GAME & CHRIS BROWN)
Complete and utter bullshit.  Untitled was allegedly supposed to be an exploration of the n-word and its historical significance, which carries over, albeit in a modified fashion, to the present day, but "Make The World Go Round" is just another materialistic rap song with no redeeming value.  Cool and Dre's beat is so radio-friendly that Nas invite the radio over for dinner and drinks, and the abhorrent Chris Brown, whose continued popularity astounds me and whose bitch ass needs to just disappear already, lends a chorus that literally could have been performed by anybody with access to Auto-Tune.  I fucking hate that asshole.  Call me a hater if you want: hell, I just did all the work for you.  Fuck that guy.  Also, The Game, who also apparently co-produced this garbage, performs the second verse, but I had to listen to this crap twice to catch him, as he sounds exactly like Nas on here.  Uncanny, really.  This shit was awful.

5.  HERO (FEAT. KERI HILSON)

Polow da Don's beat on this, Untitled's first single, is radio friendly as well, but catchier, so I can't fault it for sounding appealing. Keri Hilson is underrated and deserves better than singing cheesy hooks on Nas songs, though, especially Nas songs that prove him to be a far-more-than-simply-proficient rapper who still hasn't quite figured out how to say something that an audience will actually respond to. He stull takes this rap shit far too seriously: I know I make a point of saying on virtually every Nas write-up that he needs to find the enjoyment in what he's doing, since he could be working a real fucking job, but it's still a valid point, as Nas seems to treat the microphone as a burden. Oh, the song? Not entirely terrible, I guess. But Nasir needs to fucking appreciate the gift he's been given as soon as possible, because he can be replaced by many many many other hungry artists who would kill for a chance to be where he's at in our chosen genre. True fact.

6. AMERICA

Nas recasts himself as the scourge of Republicans everywhere by dedicating an entire track to the fallacy that is the United States of America. Which wouldn't have been a bad idea for a song all by itself, but our host took it upon himself to include a “hook” performed by a “singer” named Flo Simpson who “sings” the titular word and nearly nothing else. Which wouldn't have been a bad idea for a song all by itself, but Nasir can't be bothered to stick to his guns, so “America” soon twists itself into yet another bullshit track in his catalog that falsely makes Nas appear to be one of the game's most philosophical artists, when he reality he's just suffering from attention deficit hyperactive disorder. Groan.

7. SLY FOX

In keeping with that “scourge of Republicans everywhere” theme, Nas takes aim at Fox News, which is such a bullshit channel that is in no way “fair” nor “balanced” that this comes across almost like Eminem attacking Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears at the beginning of his career for being the type of successful pop star that he himself would soon become. (For the record, I also feel that CNN is fucking terrible and MSNBC is pretty much a Democratic version of Fox News now, just in case my personal political beliefs, as derived from the first sentence in this paragraph, have entirely alienated you from reading the rest of my work.) dead prez's stic.man gives our host a surprisingly rocking instrumental, and to his credit, Nasir stays on topic, taking Fox News to task on a myriad of topics that they tend to speculate upon, as opposed to, say, actually conducting some goddamn fucking research. Nas even touches on the not-so-subtle racism that is evident on the channel, for which I applaud him. Dude was pretty fucking upset when he wrote this one.

8. TESTIFY

A brief skit at the end of “Sly Fox” sets up “Testify”, which features a rambling Nas trying his best to be controversial (especially during the first of the two verses presented), but not even committing to the bit: the man sounds far too cynical and out-of-touch to be taken seriously. Then he starts bitching about hip hop heads who don't roll with his music, as though all of our host's work post-Illmatic is supposed to be part of required reading this semester. I mean, he's important to the cause and all, but if he flat-out refuses to even try to create good music, that well of goodwill extended to him because of his classic debut will dry up, if it hasn't already. Mark Batson's beat also sounds like a alternate-universe take on Mariah Carey's “We Belong Together”, which was a weird comparison to make, but it is what it is.

9. N.*.*.*.*.R. (THE SLAVE AND THE MASTER)

That's quite the loaded title, Nasir. Guaranteed to make most people feel uncomfortable, too. And yet, this song isn't quite as incendiary as one would think: Nas's verses are long on description and surprisingly short on any actual anger. Our host uses DJ Toomp's okay-but-not-great instrumental as a platform to comment on the obvious subject matter, given the title, but to also criticize the actions of his own race, which was unexpected. That's the kind of think Nas excels at, though, so this actually ended up being an alright song, albeit one with a title chosen merely for shock value's sake.

10. UNTITLED

The sound bite “Untitled” is built around is annoying and useless, especially when producer stic.man decides that it will also make do as a chorus (does a rap song that clocks in at less than three minutes even need a chorus? Discuss), but everything else about this track was fairly entertaining. Nasir is at his best when paired with high energy boom-bap approximations, and on this song he manages to sound more alert than he has on the entire fucking album thus far. His actual bars fail to really go anywhere, though, but at least he sounds okay.

11. FRIED CHICKEN (FEAT. BUSTA RHYMES)

Another loaded title, playing into stereotypes (even though, as Nick Kroll keeps saying during his act, everyone loves fried chicken, so what the shit, man?) in an effort to stir up some attention for an otherwise weird-ass song where Nas and guest star Busta Rhymes wax poetically about the seductive qualities of the titular food product. No, really, that's what this song is about. Kudos to Trevor for tying the song into the project's overall there at the end, and the Mark Ronson beat was actually pretty tasty, but Nasir's curious approach to the topic doesn't land as well as he thinks it does.

12. PROJECT ROACH (FEAT. THE LAST POETS)

The spoken-word portion of this piece, the second of Untitled as performed by The Last Poets, sets the mood, and Nasir runs with a quick one-verse wonder where he compares black people to cockroaches. I realize that he's merely trying to make a point, but this can be misconstrued as pretty goddamn offensive to a good portion of Nas's target audience. Since today is the first time I've ever given a shit about Untitled (save for that Reader Review I edited, which I can't remember anything about), I have no clue how “Project Roach” was received upon the project's release: as satire? As controversial for controversy's sake? Did people want to throw Nas down a flight of stairs? Let me know in the comments below.

13. Y'ALL MY N----S

That store-brand song title masks the fact that this song serves as a commentary on the n-word, what it means these days to be black, and, as an aside, hip hop's role in popular culture. One of the few times on Untitled where Nas's attempt to force the listener into hearing some serious thoughts by enveloping them in the guise of a shitty rap song actually works: the J. Myers beat is decidedly not shitty, and our host connects with his audience for the first time on the project. Not bad, although the overly-wordy hook may lead you to believe otherwise.

14. WE'RE NOT ALONE (FEAT. MYKEL)

Nas switches gears on Untitled, eschewing social commentary for a song that is, partially, and I'm not joking, about aliens and shit. Has Nasir Jones completely lost it? Perhaps: how else can one explain his decision to turn stic.man's low-key instrumental into such a soft ballad, complete with a misplaced R&B hook (performed by guest star Mykel)? This one song epitomizes the problem I'm having with Untitled: Nas thought he had a good idea, but then, as he typically does, he loses the plot in favor of bullshit song structure and overall radio-friendliness, only to turn around and claim that this was his idea the whole time, as he basically does during the interlude at the very end. What the fuck am I even doing here, Esco? And can you imagine a Nas album where the man honestly didn't give a shit about record sales, radio airplay, and appeasing his corporate major label overlords? Now that I would like to hear.

15. BLACK PRESIDENT

Untitled ends with a love letter not to Barack Obama, but to the idea of Barack Obama: what he embodies and his hopes and dreams for the country. Nas is a realist: he naturally assumes that any President that isn't white has to cope with the concept that there are a lot of racist fucks out there who will oppose him at every turn. (I could launch into another anti-Republican tirade here, but it would be unfair and ridiculously stupid of me to label every single Republican with a blanket label such as “racist”, so I'll just let Nas's words speak for me.) Nasir rambles in his typical fashion, even managing to get one of his lines censored (bringing the count to two, as one of Game's bars was also deleted on “Makes The World Go Round”, but what do you expect, given that Nas himself censored his own fucking album title?). Green Lantern's beat is too peppy for a guy like Nas, who is so clearly upset that he can't even focus on a single topic. Overall, this track was meh.

THE LAST WORD:   This is going to be long, so stay with me here.  Here's the thing about Nas: he's lucky that he received the opportunity to come up in the current era of hip hop.  The man isn't without talent: he has an absolute unchallenged classic under his belt (Illmatic, obviously), which is more than most rappers can say about their own careers.  However, said classic was the man's first album; he's spent the rest of his career thus far chasing that dragon, with diminishing returns.  Had he come up in hip hop's golden age, he would be suffering through the same kind of career as the likes of Big Daddy Kane and Kool G. Rap: hardly working today, save for occasional guest spots, living off of the goodwill generated by his earlier work while not managing to stir up enough interest in any of his newer material, none of which ever finds an audience anyway.  Nas would be performing at smaller club-type venues, guest-judging ridiculous rapper competitions on VH-1, and making brief but unnecessary cameos on Jedi Mind Tricks projects.  But no, Nas came up in the modern era, where he is blessed with the fact that hip hop heads will never let him go, even though he has failed to live up to his own lofty expectations time and time again.  And he keeps receiving several chances because, well, he's Nas.  Jay-Z didn't sign MC Shan to Def Jam: he signed Nas.  His very name carries a weight that hasn't been a true measurement since Illmatic, and yet that very project continues to open doors for him to this day.  Nas has received more chances in our chosen genre than most artists have baby's mothers.  And he hasn't done much with those chances: yes, he's managed to release some good music, but nothing has been absolutely inessential, save for maybe "Made You Look".  Untitled could have been an interesting attempt at starting a dialogue, and Nas has some good ideas on here, but ultimately it falters because Nas didn't have much in the way of substance to stand behind an instantly-newsworthy album title.  Discuss below.

-Max

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