Just Rankin’ Sh!t
All 9 Beats on Nas’ ‘Illmatic’ Album, Ranked
How do the instrumentals stack up on the perfect hip-hop LP?
Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.
9. “One Time 4 Your Mind” (Large Professor)
This simple, yet effective string loop kind of putters along while Nas kicks some day-in-the-life raps. Yeah, whatever.
8. “Halftime” (Large Professor)
Extra P’s lo-fi scramble of bass, horn flurries, and vocal chops sounds dusty nearly 30 years after this song’s release, but gotdamn if this beat doesn’t still bump.
7. “Life’s a Bitch” (L.E.S.)
The premise of this list is a trap. To say that this pristine flip of The Gap Band’s “Yearning for Your Love” — and that luscious brass outro played by Nas’ pops, Olu Dara — belongs in the bottom third of this batch sounds ludicrous. But a nine-way tie is senseless, so here we are.
6. “One Love” (Q-Tip)
The Abstract’s lone contribution is worth every second of phone time and every dollar on the books. Jail mail has never sounded so ill.
