The one Jay-Z album Nas and Kendrick Lamar agreed was their favourite
It’s fun when hip-hop artists beef each other. It’s funner, however, when they come together and complement one another on their music. In a genre so characterised by endless spats, rivalries, and tensions that have spiralled to literally claim lives, when rap stars stop to pay dues to those that they admire, it’s enough to sit up and listen to.
Especially in the case of legends Nas and Kendrick Lamar. Two of hip-hop’s greatest, they are both as celebrated for their rapping prowess and use of production as they are – perhaps most predominantly – for excellent storytelling through their lyricism.
In two separate interviews with Complex magazine, when asked to list their favourite albums, Nas and Kendrick were more than happy to pay tribute to those that inspired them along their journey. One album they both heaped unlimited praised upon was Jay-Z’s Reasonable Doubt.
The 1996 album – amazingly, his debut – is widely considered a pillar of East Coast hip-hop, and a landmark album for the hip-hop genre at large. Despite not being an immediate success upon release, it gradually climbed up to number 3 on the Top R&B/ Hip-Hop Albums chart.
“I had to double back and listen to Jay-Z once I started writing,” Kendrick said of the album. “And one of my favourite tracks on there is ‘Politics As Usual.’ Just the vibe of it and the flow. I really captured that flow and stole that cadence just being a student of the game. It really stuck with me. ‘Y’all relatin’ no waitin’ / I’ll make your block infrared hot: I’m like Satan / y’all feel a nigga’s struggle / y’all think a nigga love to hustle behind the wheel / trying to escape my trouble.’ It’s probably one of the first verses I remember on that album.”
“I got into Reasonable Doubt like 2002, 2001,” he continued. “I was super late. On the West Coast we weren’t really playing East Coast music like that just because of all the beef stuff that was going on—we was really influenced by that. I’m like 9, 10, 11 years old. I don’t wanna listen to nothing on the East Coast. Everything everybody was playing was Death Row.”
Nas, naturally comes in from a different angle to Kendrick. Not only is Nas from the East Coast too, but he belonged to the generation of hip-hop music that came before Jay-Z. “I seen this kid Jay, I already knew he was nice. I’m watching him come into the game and he delivered a lyrical album, a street album, and he grabbed his spot. A lot of people couldn’t do that. A lot of people that were putting out albums around the time Reasonable Doubt dropped are no longer around.
“He staked his claim,” Nas added. “He showed everyone he was nice with his lyrics, he was nice with it. He came in the tradition of the New York streets, the way I did, the way Biggie did. He came in that way and he’s been holding it down ever since. If you listen to Reasonable Doubt, he made it happen.”
It’s not just Nas and Kendrick. Critics and commentators consider it one of the genre’s best works, and Jay-Z fans especially are likely to refer to Unreasonable Doubt as the Grammy-Award winning artist’s best work.