Nas is the GOAT

[blackbird]

I always thought GZA was very underrated. Not the best overall, but in terms of his clever rhymes and depth of his subjects I'd put him up there.

[ACF]

Kamaal Fareed or Kelvin Mercer. Always.

[ManUp]

Lupe Fiasco seems to be having a really bad day... check out his twitter.


https://twitter.com/LupeFiasco

[ManUp]

An Explaination of Lamborghini Angels I found online.

Really makes you appreciate the song.

Lupe sitting on a sofa, dramatically speaking the chorus:

I see diamond flooded demons....Lamborghini angels, Lamborghini angels, Lamborghini angels....Halos down with the doors flapping as they came through, halos down with the doors flapping when they came through

"So Lamborghini Angels is probably the most aggressive, visually aggressive song on the album. It takes..I say five characters and puts them in these particular situations. And so for instance the first situation opens on somebody who's like a uhhh...a preacher or like an exorcist. He's in the midst of his exorcism. He puts a circle on the floor um and he speaks about pulling the beast up out of the heart of the victim. He goes on to seal the room, and he begins to start to warn 'don't enter this place, don't fraternize with this person. This person is in a war...with these demons, with these demons what have you"


With a circle on the floor he compels them to be pure
Pulls the beast out of his heart then impales it on a sword
Writes a prayer on some paper and then he nails it to the door
Just the good of you may enter by the mercy of the lord
Listen not to what he speaks, that's been the cursing of his CHORDS
A seduction of his senses by the devils he adores
The unholy has him hostage and his soul is now at war
Follow not his secret knowledge it will bring you no reward
Shun him while in public disallow him from your stores
Have no part in his affairs 'less his pestilence be yours

"You should keep him away from your daughters and you know basically don't fraternize with him. And then it ends and it really isn't a demon, he's talking about the color of his skin"

Make scoundrels of the righteous and virgins into ****s
But we must still pray that his colour will be cured

I see diamond flooded demons, Lamborghini Angels

"The second verse, it has, a university medical show. You know like a demonstration, a presentation. The doctor is in the midst of finishing a procedure and there's a young woman on the table. Basically lobotomizing this young lady. And he's going to the crowd and he's speaking more like a salesman format as if he's selling this procedure on how it'll make her more docile and heal the insanity."

With her eyes to the ceiling and a needle in her brain
He looks back into the crowd, wipes the blood and then explains
How she slipped from this existence to the realm of the deranged
Her becoming must be halted to reverse what she became
From the looseness of her tongue, to the pollution of her aims
To do nothing is barbaric, the solution is humane
You must destroy the mind and hopefully retrain
You torture out the wildness, then replace it with the tame
Blank slate when she recovers, she won't even know her name
Perfect wife and perfect lover, no resistance, no complaints
May God bless the scientific cure for the insane

(he actually forgot the looseness of the tongue line )

"and then you come to find out what the woman's infliction is in the last line of the verse"

Knew she couldn't go to school, but she thought that that should change

"And that is the nature of her insanity so to speak and it speaks to instance in history where wanting to have their own self determination was considered in some instances insane and there had to be something wrong with them. And this is more of the extreme case that the woman is actually lobotomized for her want to go to school."

And I see diamond flooded demons, lamborghini angels

"the third verse is more of a hodgepodge. It takes three different characters and kinda chops them up in these short little vignettes. The first little vignette is a preacher, a priest."

With his crucifix inside his pocket said his mission is divine
Put his Bible on the bed and then he touched on his behind

"There's a little boy and the priest in his full priest regalia puts his bible on the bed"

Told him take off all his clothes and put your **** next to mine

"And it speaks to the epidemic of pedophilia in like the Catholic church and in other religions as well."

Now the little boy think it's normal because they do this all the time

"and it ends with that and it goes into the second vignette of a person who is a enemy combatant on the battlefield. He's dead and because he's dead. He thinks that he is safe. The people who have killed him start to basically vandalize his body. They cut his fingers off and use them as necklaces or keep them as souvenirs. Then they take pictures of him and if that's not the greatest injustice he finds himself in picture form (goat concept btw) smuggled back to the united states. His resting place in picture form sits on a mantle and the picture next to him is his wife and the picture of his wife, she's being raped by you know the same group of soldiers"

With no life inside his body now he finally think he’s safe
But they cut off all his fingers while they p--- all in his face
He take pictures with his killers then they sneak back to the states
Now he sit next to the picture of his wife when she was raped

"Then it goes into the third vignette and the third vignette is the unknown politician who is in the midst of some apology of some affair that has transpired and he's done some great public injustice and he has to you know speak his peace to the media and to the people."

With the teleprompter rolling he looks right into the lens

"this is like his confession"

Doesn’t mention his redemption but absolves him of his sins

in the midst of of apologizing, he says that he's going to do this again but not vocally...you just KNOW he's going to do it again. It's assumed greatly"

They forgive him in advance and he says that he will do again


"and we take the voices of three different presidents and blend them together. I think it's John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson and whomever and he says 'Good evening my fellow Americans'. And it ends...like that. This is theater...this is all a political theater"


I see Diamond flooded demons, Lamborghini angels, Lamborghini angels, Lamborghini angels. Halos down with the door flapping when they came through. Halos......down with the doors, flapping when they came through

"and then the chorus is basically talking about these mythical creatures. Basically these NEW mythical creatures. What is the new Medusa so to speak. What is the new fantastic animal of mythology and its a Lamborghini that you know has the wings because its doors are butterfly doors, scissor doors. They're wings. And the tops of cars are convertibles, they're halos and you have these Lamborghini Angels (GOAT). You feel that i'm in a doctors office looking at ink blots and the doctor is asking me what I see and i tell him I see diamond flooded demons and lamborghini angels, halos down, with the tops down.  You know halos, the angelic part of them is actually missing like it's hidden behind them where the roof is hidden on a convertible car and the doors are flapping so the angel wings are flapping as they came through and it's this vivid kinda mix with materialism and mythology and religiousness and spirituality and iconography you know for today. What would those mythological creatures look like? and that's basically the crux of Lamborghini Angels.

"

[OsirusCeltics]

The reason I think Nas is the greatest IMO is on 3 things

1. Lyricism
-His compound rhymes within a rhyme is too good. His words leave you wondering what he really meant in a deeper sense

2. Concepts
-Although he's not the first to use conceptualism in his raps, he is the innovator and took it to another level with his philosophies and storytelling. Influenced Lupe a whole lot

-Illmatic album was a street hustler theme
-It Was Written was a mafioso style theme
-Streets Disciple was a biblical theme
-Hip Hop is Dead is a theme of old musical classics
-Untitled was a racism in America theme
-Plus countless other individual songs that have awesome concepts

3. Can rap in any style
-He can rap fast, slow
 
Can rap on southern hip hop beats
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9iT_fUCVf8

Can rap west coast hip hop beats
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqqrr-ZiNO4
 
Raps about World history and teaching the youth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLmRoVMfsD8

Relationships
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmZ5Muqyx8s

Can personify objects into a story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUwJ8WcZ6RY


Others may have their favorites, but Nas to me is the greatest and most influential

[AshyLarry]

Guys, guys, guys. You're gonna thank me for this, but you're all wrong. It's okay, because you already know the G(R)OAT:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m5CIcbytfM