Illmatic is an inspiration to me. Every line is meticulously assembled, every metaphor surprising, and the stories are invested with so much specificity and emotion. He makes Queensbridge in 1993 relatable to a guy whose childhood couldn’t have been more superficially different. Despite the care put into the record, it doesn’t feel brainy – Nas manages to make the whole thing feel spontaneous and free. The thing that stays with me, though, is the worldview.

I hate it when writers try to legitimize rap by comparing it to other forms of literature…but like Humbert Humbert and Holden Caulfield before him and Max Fischer and Don Draper after him, Nas’s Illmatic character radiates a unique perspective on the world. He gets “charged” drinking Dom Perignon and watching Gandhi. He mourns the fact that the local petty criminals are getting younger. He keeps a jailed friend apprised of the state of his reputation in the borough. Through all of this, he warns off anyone who might try him – he’s pointing guns in all his baby pictures. Unlike fellow Queensbridge resident Prodigy of Mobb Deep, he’s a reluctant nihilist. Afterwards, Jay-Z played a similar role – the “kingpin with a conscience,” but with Jay, it’s usually all or nothing. He’s either unrepentant and ruthless, or he’s a wet blanket. Don’t get me wrong, I love Jay-Z, but nobody ever managed the dichotomy like Nas. Okay, enough said. If you don’t own Illmatic, take care of that. If you do, give it a listen.