Illmatic at 30: how Nas invented epistolary rap – and changed the hyper-masculine world of hip hop forever

By Paul Stephen Adey, Rap Lyricist and Lecturer in Music Performance at Confetti Institute of Creative Technology, Nottingham Trent University

In 1999, during the opening verse to Hate Me Now, Nas positioned himself as the “most critically acclaimed, Pulitzer prize” winning “thug narrator” of his generation. At the time, these lines were seen as just another gem in a long line of highly sophisticated, literary Nas lyrics.

But flash forward almost two decades to 2018, and this once seemingly unfathomable accolade for an artist of the rap genre became a reality…

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