Nas’ ‘Illmatic’ Album: All 10 Songs Ranked 

“Stop f—kin’ around and be a man.” That line from the beginning of Wild Style is burned into my brain. Not because I’ve watched the quintessential hip-hop movie a thousand times, but because I’ve played Illmatic front to back a thousand times. It was rare for an album to start with a song back in ‘94, yet, for some reason, there was something special about using the Wild Style score to set things off. It just felt right and still does.

The swing Large Professor came up with on this song is still insane. The type of track that makes you make an ugly face and snap your neck. Nas becomes one with this beat and just absolutely loses his mind. He says, “Y’all n—as was born, I shot my way out my mom dukes.” Excuse me? That’s one of the most brain-melting bars in rap history, a line he sampled on “Fetus” from his Lost Tapes album, which originally was supposed to be on his 1999 album I Am….

Here goes DJ Premier with another banger. The beat on “Represent” sounds like a hood fairytale and Nasty Nas is our trusty narrator. He takes the listener through the labyrinth that is Queensbridge Houses as he raps about the various happenings he sees on the daily. This track also features the line “Somehow the rap game reminds me of the crack game” which Nas’ former arch nemesis Jay-Z samples on 1997’s “Rap Game/Crack Game” and the bar about the Tec on the dresser famously brought up in Jay’s diss song “Takeover.” To quote another great New Yorker in Howard Ratner, “That’s history right there, you understand?” 

“The Washingtons go to wifey, you know how that go.” This was a career-making feature from Brooklyn’s AZ, and his verse is often what fans bring up when this particular song is mentioned. He went so crazy on this that he got his own record deal. Not to say Nas didn’t go off, because he has memorable lines on this joint as well, but AZ barred up like his life depended on it. L.E.S.’s smooth production and Nas’ father, Olu Dara, on the horn towards the end really brings the track home as the album gets ready to pick things back up again.

The first time my friends and I got caught smoking weed by a parent was when my friends and I were inspired by this song to roll two Dutch Master cigars together to make an oo-wop blunt in my boy Rob’s attic apartment. Nas name drops Phillies in this classic Q-Tip collab, but we didn’t rock with those. His mother walked in and saw us smoking a big a– blunt and just shook her head in disappointment. The influence runs deeper still when you peep the famous scene in Hype Williams’ Belly when Nas’ character Sincere goes back to his old projects and sits down to smoke with a noticeably young hustler and realize Hype just pulled this directly from the song’s last verse. Songs like this are why the Queens MC is considered one of the best storytellers in music history. According to Tip, Nas told Premier he wanted to work with the Tribe Called Quest frontman, and the rest is history.

Peace, God. “Memory Lane” is Preemo’s second of three contributions to the greatest rap album ever made and it’s a good one. Nas being a teenager when he made a song like this will never cease to amaze me: Growing up in that environment matures you faster than if you lived in the ‘burbs. His imagery is genius, his storytelling is vivid, his wordplay is advanced. He was 18 when he started making this album. The organ sample from Reuben Wilson’s “We’re in Love” and Nas’ narration of life in and around Queensbridge puts you right on the block hearing fiends scream about the Supreme Team.

I vividly remember when my cousin Jordan brought this tape home. This was one of the first songs I heard from Nas and one of the early rap videos I remember always being on either The Box or MTV, so this song will always hold a special place in my heart. We ran that cassette into the ground. And at the time, I was a big Pete Rock & CL Smooth fan even at my young age. That baseline, the piano, that signature Pete Rock swing? The perfect beat, if you ask me. The song makes you feel like Tony Montana looking up at the blimp and say to yourself: “I want the world, chico, and everythin’ in it.” 

It’s hard for me to pick a favorite track from a perfect album, but this is up there, hence the ranking. I would still take an entire album from Large Professor and his pupil Nas. There’s no need for a hook as Nasty takes off into another universe, only taking breaks before entering another dimension of criminal slang. His raps truly should be locked in a cell.

Illmatic’s first single, “Halftime” was so hard, it made DJ Premier want to work with Nas for free. “When I heard ‘Halftime,’ that was some next shit to me,” he told The Source. “So, from that point, after Serch approached me about doing some cuts, it was automatic. You’d be stupid to pass that up even if it wasn’t payin’ no money.” I mean what else can I say about this song? Shouts to Large Professor for crafting a masterpiece.

This is still one of DJ Premier’s best beats and the song is still one of rap’s best album openers. The rap prodigy from QB wasted no time proving why the best minds in hip-hop heralded him as the Chosen One. The lines “I keep some E&J, sittin’ bent up in the stairway/ Or either on the corner bettin’ Grants with the cee-lo champs/ Laughin’ at baseheads tryna sell some broken amps, G-packs get off quick, forever niggas talk sh—t/ Reminiscin’ about the last time the task force flipped” are so cinematic, you can close your eyes and smell the pissy project stairways.

I can write a thousand words on both the verses on this track. I’ve been randomly saying “Time to start the revolution, catch a body, head for Houston” for 30 years now. What did I know about that in middle school? If someone asks what New York City is like, you tell them to listen to “N.Y. State of Mind.”