‘…Also known as the rich man’s disease, you don’t have to be rich to get it, you just doing too much you get it’, Nasir Olu Dara Jones says in the ‘The Definition’ featuring Brucie B.
KING’S DISEASE is Nas’s 13th studio album and damn God’s son is still ill, the album has some sort of an 80s feel with gold rope chains and Brucie kills ‘The Definition’ on the ones and twos coupled with nice chants at the intro and outro of the track, the game has missed that .
And Nas’s penmanship, is still crazy and very mature as expressed in this album. He may not be the talk of these times but a real Mcee doesn’t allow hip hop to pass by. And he is now looking at the world from a very high position, not just like a kid from the Queensbridge Projects but from an elevated stature in hip hop and black culture.
Anyday, you will catch Nasir celebrating black excellence, Michael Jordan, LeBrone, name them but Nas has used this album to tackle racism and domestic violence. ‘..A black male or female thing, fail thing, journalism or internalism …. King’s disease I cure you with my heart, he raps.
Nas’s has been accused of domestic violence in the past, his ex-wife Kelis, but many lovers of the culture will tell you that Nas is a god mcee any day but he is becoming too much with his drama with Kelis. ‘These coward men that were beating on you, Never me, he raps in ‘Till the war is won’.
Who has the balls to attack the media and president like Nas did in ‘The Definition’? He called them science deniers who are unable to accept global warming and racism.
‘stupid words from the president’s mouth, where are his editors, Antarctica is 65 degrees, global warming, they don’t wanna believe, and they are hanging people on trees’…..
That’s a wild Nas but the touch of Hit-Boy gives the album a cohesive feel. The beats dangle between drums, jazzy and classic sounding jamz.
The man regarded as one of the best to bless the mic, still has his groove like a man 30 years in hip hop. He sounds revived in this project with Hit-Boy with enough authority to chest thump as the King of New York.
He is not afraid to shots and test waters around him. When he mentions Kobe and Nip in ‘The Cure’ where he dares his bad rap head out, you pause and start a fresh, the black community is in goosebumps.
Kings Disease is a royal return and pure showcase that the 46-year-old hip hop legend is still his best, like when he dropped Illmatic in 1994.
He has been accused of being poor at selecting beats but this time the Mass Appeal boss killed the mesmerising keys warped with whistles and the producer must have gotten every little detail right.
Nas walked and showed leadership on Hit-Boy beats, easier than he did in his last project with Kanye West. Dropped in 2018, Nasir was a nice piece but criticized because Nas worked with a man some people view as crazy producer now.
