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Brilliantly sequenced, the album reaches a euphoric climax with the "Yes, we can change the world" hook of 'Black President,' a close cousin of Lupe Fiasco's 'Superstar.'
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The beats beat Green Lantern's. And what the finale has to say about Obama is so sane I may just check out van Sertima myself.
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"Illmatic" was stylistically brilliant and incalculably influential, but Untitled is a more mature, emotionally-driven, and philosophically-complex piece of work. It’s also a masterpiece.
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Even if the music isn't extraordinary, Nas himself is legendary on "Untitled" - and as long as racism is relevant, so is this album.
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It's refreshing to hear a complicated record that doesn't shy from grown-up ambition.
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From "Project Roach," where Nas says that the NAACP's burial of "n*gger" was pointless, to "Untitled," which discusses Louis Farrakhan's role in America, the Queens MC impresses his listener while provoking social and political thought.
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The new album, immersed in a soul-funk sound with guest spots from the Stylistics and the Last Poets, is contradictory at times, but the idea of building hope through about an hour's worth of music supersedes any effort to brew controversy.
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This is a sprawling, furious, deeply ambivalent theme album about institutional racism, the failures of black leadership and the pathologies and promise of early-21st-century African-American life.
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A couple tracks might sonically resemble inferior versions of years-old tracks that helped make Nas a hip-hop deity and, nearly ten years after Nas was first accused of selling out, he might still sound a little awkward over radio-friendly productions. But the MC has never made an album as engrossing or as necessary as this one.
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Mixing his ear for hits, like single ‘Hero’, with the political eloquence that marks the record out, this ought to be the album that promotes Nas back up into the super leagues that 1994’s "Illmatic" originally shot him into.
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Ho & bling free rap of the highest thought provoking order.
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Nas finds a wonderful groove in its final third, as the rapper takes a break from heady theorizing to rap allegorically from the perspective of a cockroach and pens a love song to fried chicken.
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The lyrics are all terrific; the beats, not so much.
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Those who care not only about hip-hop but the culture it reflects and shapes will find Nasir Jones' latest the most intriguing, provocative and ultimately troubling album released this year.
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Controversy aside, without any truly addictive tracks, you can't consider Nas's latest among his greatest. But it's hard not to appreciate the effort.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 128 out of 154
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Mixed: 13 out of 154
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Negative: 13 out of 154
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SeanLSep 4, 2008
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EmH.Jul 20, 2008
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Will******Jul 16, 2008