Life Is Good

Life Is Good -- And It Is--- by Brian Salkowski

To

describe Life Is Good in the most simplistic way I can think of, it's the first Nas album in a decade that can be recommended without any sort of disclaimer, any sort of "this album is good, but for Nas...?" And that's tremendously exciting both today and for Nas' future records. Hip-hop was vibrant as ever in 2012, and Life Is Good proves to be a major example of why. Life Is Good is arguably Nas’ best LP since Stillmatic. In a climate where substance is scarce, the album is necessary. It’s potent from the excellent cover art to Nas’s sharp bars. It’s balanced. The Queens MC is open, but not emo. Hard, but also thought-provoking. I want to start off with the song "Daughters". It absolutely shocked me. Not in a bad way. It's an illustration of what it means to be brutally honest with oneself. There are no sugarcoated lyrics or half-ass alibis in discussing his relationship with daughter. Nas pours his heart out when he forewarns his daughter that her lover might not be interested in her, but how he might be drawn to the size of her mother’s home or her father’s status (“He seen your mama crib/Plus I’m sure he know who your father is”). Perhaps this is an ideology that us non-wealthy folks will not understand, but when a girl goes out, we first expect her suitor to be after the physical rather than their parents’ riches or fame. It’s a complex relationship between father and daughter, but truthfully, most father-daughter relationships are. This one just happens to be expressed by a world famous rapper. "Reach Out" with frequent collaborator Mary J Blige team up once again using the now infamous "Ike's Mood" beat to throw you back in 1990s nostalgia. On “Reach Out,” Nas rhymes, “And you become better than legends you thought were the greatest.” Again, the Nasty MC’s words ring true. At this juncture—21 years and 10 solo albums in—no other MC has ever rhymed at such a high level this deep into their career. Not Kool G Rap. Not Slick Rick. Not Big Daddy Kane. Not LL Cool J. No One. This album is so much better than I thought it’d be. This shit is really great so far. I love the production on the track, "World's An Addiction" and Anthony Hamilton sang his ass off as always. I really love his vocals. I’d like to hear more features from him. This is a really dramatic beat. It sounds like a track from a fucking Kingdom Hearts soundtrack. Not in a bad way tho; this sounds really polished and well done. Salaam Remi excelled on this beat. Anthony Hamilton made the hook too. It’s really intense. Nas’ flow and delivery sound so good over this beat. I love how chaotic this track sounds. It kinda gives me the same feeling that the first track from untitled gave me. The first verse is spectacular. He spazzed on that shit. Do other people not like this as much as I do? I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this album this much. For years Nas' lyrics never came off as promoting life to be good. Salaam Remi really doesn’t get enough credit as a producer. It really sounds like Nas is rapping over a movie score. It sounds like it could be the soundtrack to a James Bond spinoff movie or something. Again, his aggressive flow and delivery make him seem like he’s almost trying to prove that he can still kill anyone on the mic, when he knows that he been done proved that. Fantastic. I love the break between the two verses too. "Roses" has this dark dramatic production. There’s an uncredited vocal from Nikki Flores on the hook, and she did a great job singing. I feel like he’s talking about failed relationships and life on a almost metaphysical level in the bonus tracks (Roses, Trust, The Black Bond, Nasty and The Massive Attack Mix of The Don) more than he did in the actual deep album cuts, and divorce is supposed to be one of the main themes. It’s not a super big deal for me personally, but I feel like it should be pointed out and made aware of. But back to Roses. The first verse was awesome. This is more of what I expected to hear on the main, standard edition songs on the album. This is more of what I wanted. I feel like this should’ve been on every version of the album. The first verse was awesome: "I’m an ass magnet; if you mad at that, you’ll be mad forever / Never played you; I prayed we would stay together / Wished it’d last forever, know what I mean? / Heard if you tear a rose from the roots the rose screams" Massive Attack seem to have taken a liking to Nas’ excellent Life Is Good single, “The Don.” The trip-hop/cinematic electronic stalwarts have taken the track and embellished it with their signature percolating synth and crisp snare, elevating an already considerable rap record to something a bit more transcendant. It opens up more to a tangible thing. Life Is Good, is an album rappers dream about having in their discography. A deep, but fully self aware of the pretentious and ostentatious lyrics at times, Esco got us again. Is life really good? If Nas is in this life still knocking out such awe-inspiring records, then life truly is good. We live in a different era than Illmatic, one where hip-hop has taken on so many different forms that each listener has their own definition of what can make or break the “classic” status. Life Is Good – is undoubtedly one of the strongest records of his career, but like all of his others, some will call it classic, others won’t. It's important. Intelligent. Interesting and needed in the current climate.Life Is Good starts out remarkably with “No Introduction” – despite being a bit overproduced – Nas is at his best here, letting listeners know what he’s been up to since the last time we heard his voice. This leads into the very Illmatic-esque “Loco-Motive” (feat. Large Professor), which proves Nas could easily craft a true sequel to his classic debut, if he wanted to. But he doesn’t need to, as proven on tracks like the cinematic “A Queens Story”, the fake-gangster blasting “Accident Murderers”, and the incredibly penned “Daughters”, where Nas laments “What he date, he straight a chip off his old papa / who she date, we wait behind the door with a sawed-off...” ... “Back When” is another post-Illmatic banger, classically crafted by No I.D., while “The Don” is a dancehall fueled, Super Cat sampling New York anthem, sure to mash up the place. Closing out with a gorgeous pairing of Salaam Remi’s two greatest collaborators – Nas and Amy Winehouse – on the long overdue “Cherry Wine”, and the bittersweet dedication to his ex-wife, Kelis, on “Bye Baby” – it’s safe to say that Nas has recorded one of the best albums of his storied career. Life Is Good is easily Nas’ most personal album to date, which amazingly is one of the first albums to peel a layer away of Nas’ armored exterior – something that’s been largely kept quiet throughout his career. Like Hip-Hop Is Dead and Untitled before, Nas has crafted another amazingly solid concept album. And we’ll put that on every last one of his classics.