Nas- "NY State of Mind"

“Lets be real though; it definitely reclaimed hip-hop’s mantle for New York and staked a defiant claim after the West Coast redefined the genre with it’s gangsta poetics and choruses of crack tales.  But “N.Y State of Mind” is also bigger than that because Nas didn’t just describe a world, he laid out a worldview so that “N.Y State of Mind” is not just hip-hop’s official anthem-no diss to Flash’s “The Message,” Public Enemy’s “Fight The Power” or Wu Tang Clan’s “C.R.E.AM.”  It’s also that global clarion call to prayer for hip-hop’s believers worldwide because it’s a chilling track that harrowingly describes and imagines with such surreal imagery, with so much noir discontent and eve more dwellers, shantytown residents and war-torn refugee camp denzines of a new world order fraught with defiance and dread.  That dread, so ambiently woven through “N.Y state of Mind makes the song a kind of message in the bottle sent down the ether for all those who heed its warnings, britlliaintely would become in a deeply interconnected global economy.  In fact, with Illmatic, Nas married sound with geography, making Illmatic in essence a sonic map. “(“N.Y State of Mind”-Sohail Daulatzai- “Born To Use Mics on Nas’ Illmatic)“Lets be real though; it definitely reclaimed hip-hop’s mantle for New York and staked a defiant claim after the West Coast redefined the genre with it’s gangsta poetics and choruses of crack tales.  But “N.Y State of Mind” is also bigger than that because Nas didn’t just describe a world, he laid out a worldview so that “N.Y State of Mind” is not just hip-hop’s official anthem-no diss to Flash’s “The Message,” Public Enemy’s “Fight The Power” or Wu Tang Clan’s “C.R.E.AM.”  It’s also that global clarion call to prayer for hip-hop’s believers worldwide because it’s a chilling track that harrowingly describes and imagines with such surreal imagery, with so much noir discontent and eve more dwellers, shantytown residents and war-torn refugee camp denzines of a new world order fraught with defiance and dread.  That dread, so ambiently woven through “N.Y state of Mind makes the song a kind of message in the bottle sent down the ether for all those who heed its warnings, britlliaintely would become in a deeply interconnected global economy.  In fact, with Illmatic, Nas married sound with geography, making Illmatic in essence a sonic map. “(“N.Y State of Mind”-Sohail Daulatzai- “Born To Use Mics on Nas’ Illmatic)