NAS – Life is Good Review

NAS – Life is Good Review

   The legend NAS has released his 10 studio album in his illustrious career as an emcee. “Life is Good” is his attempt to reclaim the success of previous releases such as “Illmatic” & “I Am”. Now before you pump this album in your speakers please listen to it without being bias. There is a lot of garbage Hip Hop out there today and if you are looking for something refreshing compared to that, you will make this album a classic before you even hear it. So here is the review of NAS’s “Life is Good” brought to you by yours truly Matt Freeman.

  Right off the top, “Loco-Motive” featuring Large Professor and “Reach Out” featuring Mary J. Blige are both classic NAS tracks. “Loco-Motive” will bring you in with the beat produced by No I.D. and then the lyrics by NAS will make you play this track over and over. “Reach Out” has the perfect collaboration of NAS’s lyrics and Mary J’s always recognizable voice. These 2 tracks by far are my favorite on this album. This album was mainly produced by No I.D. with the exception of a few songs including “Summer of Smash” which is produced by none other Swizz Beatz. Considering that it was a deadly combination of NAS’s lyrics and Swizz Beatz production you thought it was going to be a classic but unfortunately like a lot of the tracks it fell short of expectations.

   Other features on this album were “Cherry Wine” which featured the late Amy Winehouse and “Accident Murders” featuring Ricky Ross. Both are alright tracks but again I expected more and got less on both tracks. Overall like I said, if you listen to this album unbiased then it is a solid album but if you listen to it with the hopes of a classic record you will be disappointed. Truthfully I listened to this album in its entirety for the first week. Now I fast word to the 2 tracks mentioned above and then archive the album back to the library. It was indeed refreshing to know some of the “old school” emcees are trying to bring back to life the lyrical side of hip hop instead of putting all their energy into hooks and catch phrases.

   Overall, “Life is Good” will always have great lyrics if its a NAS album but it seems to have a lot of filler. His classic albums I can still play today from front to back, each track had a different story and different beat. This album was produced by the same producer and you can tell. It’s like the producer said, “NAS, keep rhyming and I will inject different beats here and there and then we can cut it into different tracks and there’s the album”. with this album, if you are purchasing other artists these days then I would encourage you to purchase this one as well but if you are looking for that injection of some real Hip Hop then I would ask for a downloaded copy or at least purchase the 2 tracks mentioned at the top and move on.