NAS
THE SUN RISES IN THE EAST
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But the second phase of the competition, aesthetics, is only beginning. Many critics see the battle now raging between the good guys, those thoughtful bohemian types, like P.M. Dawn and Arrested Development, and the glib thugs, like Dr. Dre’s Death Row posse and the South Central Cartel. While nobody with a functional brain would dispute the vast expanse between the Death Row version of streetwise buppiedom, “Say it loud, I’m rich and I’m proud–once again, say it loud, I’m bad and I’m proud,” and Arrested D’s “the revolution will be user friendly” syllabus, the musical terrain within those borders is being widely mischaracterized. Many music journalists are assuming any vehement declamations and aggressive beats is gangsta, ignoring the context of the music. Thus many fine recordings that are essentially the ghetto cousins of Arrested D’s rural positivism are wrongly lumped in with mindless gangsta rap. This tendency reached its nadir recently when Rolling Stone described Treach of Naughty by Nature as a gangsta rapper, which is like calling U2 a hard-rock band.
These roots are claimed by hip hop’s most vibrant mainstream representatives. New Yorkers like Gang Starr, A Tribe Called Quest, and Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth; Angelinos such as the Pharcyde and the Bay Area’s Hieroglyphics posse–Casual, Souls of Mischief, and Del the Funkee Homosapien–have all built their sound on a ghettocentric foundation–hard, sparely appointed beats and fluid, low-key declamations. None of them needs to pump out his chest to prove his manhood, and they all sound like they’re rapping on a street corner.
The aggressive sonic roar of these records shouldn’t obscure their striking qualities. Both records are anything but “gangsta.” And if they seem a far cry from Arrested Development’s approach, consider that both Nas and Jeru are among the dozens of major New York hip hop figures who were at the New York record-release party to help Speech and his crew celebrate the release of Zingalamaduni. Covering the first phase of hip hop required only an atlas and a Billboard chart. The next phase will demand a deeper understanding of the music rather than reliance on convenient labels.
