overlooked classics: “second childhood.”
“as a music dude/i mastered this rubix cube.”
stillmatic is unanimously considered nas’ mid-period comeback album. hip-hop fans left him for dead after his abysmal nastradamus record, rightfully trashing it as “obvious mainstream pandering.” to be honest, i don’t even remember if there was a decent song on it, because i haven’t listened to the album in years. however, in a chest-thumping claim for hip-hop supremacy or an act of career-reviving goodwill, jay-z [also coming off of one of his poorer albums, the dynasty: roc la familia] seemingly dissed nas- who, in the 90’s, stood proudly in the “best rapper ever” debate alongside biggie and tupac- out of nowhere. over a stomping beat and a grimy doors sample, hov brutally damaged mobb deep’s career, a blow that they’re really still recovering from, and went at one of the greatest rappers of all-time. and for that reason, stillmatic is most known as “the album that has ‘ether’ on it.” and for good reason: “ether” was such a scathing battle track that hip-hop fans [present company included] now use the song title as a VERB.
this evening, i was listening to stillmatic, and realized what i had forgotten since december of 2001: “ether” isn’t even the best song on the album.
from that first snare/cymbal hit, “second childhood” sounds like a classic hip-hop song, courtesy of the instantly recognizable drum sounds of DJ premier [a man who i constantly tout as the best hip-hop producer in history]. premo picks an 80’s song [i lost the CD case to the album, so i can’t read the liner notes and pick out the sample], simple basslines, chiming keyboards, cheesy synth plucks and all, and gives nasir a medium to spit one of his most thoughtful raps.
the first verse is about his own childhood, from remembering the number of the building where he grew up to watching his father smoking weed and beating his chest “like a gorilla/outside with psychos, killas.” premo does a little more with this track than just loop the sample, doing a little chopping of the track every eight bars, making the listener’s head nod a little more. and the sample, even with the cheesy synth plucks, provides a feeling of nostalgia for the hip-hop fans who were raised by parents who spun lionel richie records on long summer nights [or maybe i’m just a little young].
on the second verse, nas throws a fictional tale about an ex-con who just got home, but won’t get a job, providing vivid images of him and his homeboys watching BET’s comicview and laughing so hard that they break the furniture. he’s still selling drugs, and has multiple kids from different women, and smoking weed in “the same spot he stood since ‘85,” painting a sad portrait of an inner-city dweller who wasn’t afforded a reasonable education, because the teachers “were paid just to show up and leave.”
the final verse visits a 27-year-old single mother who is running in the streets in expensive clothes with no bank account. this should provide uncomfortable memories to anyone who’s ever spent their childhood at their grandmother’s house or coming home from school with noone home and no food in the fridge, doing their homework in a silent kitchen. the single mother in question is so promiscuous that she’s nicknamed “the brain surgeon,” taking estascy and gossiping with her friends, while not even having a job to support herself or her son.
“second childhood” shows nas at his most nostalgic and creative, painting pictures of not only of the kid who looked out of his project window and wrote stories [himself], but heartbreaking casualties of the inner-city, who never took it upon themselves to carve out a better life. and he does this without sounding as blurred [nastradamus-era] or preachy [hip-hop is dead-era] as he would have if this had been on another album. this is really what “grown man rap” should sound like, and a vivid picture of life in new york city.
November 12th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
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