CD reviews
They release 'em, we review 'em
By Seth Combs , Todd Kroviak
Nas
Untitled
*6.5*
(Def Jam)
Goes well with: 2Pac, Notorious B.I.G., Rakim, Queensbridge
It’s hard to believe it’s been 14 years since Illmatic sent shockwaves through the music world. Nasir Jones’ debut album deserves its reputation as nearly flawless street poetry, but his subsequent work will always be compared to it. He’s capable of producing another classic—coming close with 2001’s Stillmatic and 2002’s God’s Son—but every album since Illmatic has been unable to maintain a similar coherence.
Erratic production is largely to blame, but Nas also still can’t decide if he’s a teacher or a hustler. He often lacks the focus required to optimize his talents, a fact exacerbated by his ability to court controversy in recent years. His 2006 claim that Hip Hop is Dead caused grumbling among the rap faithful, and his controversial performance at a Virginia Tech benefit show sparked Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly to charge that Nas is “as violent as they come.”
If his battle with Jay-Z was any indication, insulting Nas is the surest way to find yourself in his lyrical crosshairs. Much of Untitled is a noble rallying cry for fans to support his newfound righteousness. The album occasionally touches greatness, but it still falls prey to the same issues that have plagued Nas since Illmatic.
Untitled was originally titled Nigger, but backlash from Def Jam and the NAACP (among others) helped coerce a name change. Still, the initial defiance remains. Nearly every track explores the theme of being black in America, with varying degrees of success.
Nas is at his most vigilant on “N.I.G.G.E.R. (The Slave and the Master),” “Untitled” and “We’re Not Alone.” The results are thrilling—on par with the lucid, socially aware work of Boogie Down Productions—with the subdued beats giving Nas and his lyrics room to breathe. On “Ya’ll My Niggas,” the album’s best cut, he argues that the appropriation of the N-word subverted it into a unifying symbol. When he hits on all levels like this, Nas is still untouchable.
It’s the tracks that wander thematically that damage the album’s integrity. “Breathe,” “Make the World Go Round” and “Hero” are filled with the kind of rhythmically pleasing yet vacuous flow that belongs on a Snoop Dogg album.
“Sly Fox” charges Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate with spreading racist propaganda, but Nas stretches the idea too thin by extending his indictment to political corruption and oil dependency.
At its best, Untitled is a signal of changing attitudes in hip-hop. Nas has shown a genuine desire to become politically active, including helping ColorOfChange.org collect more than 620,000 signatures in opposition to what the organization describes as racist commentary on Fox News.
Appearing on The Colbert Report last week, Nas responded to O’Reilly’s claims that his raps are too violent by asking, “How did the guns from Israel and Austria end up in my hands?” He postulates that ghetto violence is the byproduct of a political infrastructure that treats minorities as an afterthought at best.
Nas seems to have finally decided that he can be an intelligent, positive spokesman, but it’s going to take his complete attention to create an album that distances itself from the trappings of commercial hip-hop. With Untitled, he shows that the desire is there, even if the concentration isn’t.
—Todd Kroviak
Nas performs Sunday, Aug. 10, at House of Blues.
Jaguar Love
Take Me to the Sea
(Matador)
*5.8*
Goes well with: The Blood Brothers, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Mars Volta
Keeping hardcore-rock fans appeased can be tough. Just ask Cody Votolato and Johnny Whitney. In the decade they spent kicking and screaming in The Blood Brothers, they were basically accused of selling out with every album they released. But after finally getting on a bigger label and releasing what was arguably their best and most accessible album (Young Machetes), they broke up, only to have their fair-weather fans beg them to patch things up.
Now those fans have real cause to be upset. Votolato and Whitney have teamed up with multi-instrumentalist Jay Clark (formerly of Pretty Girls Make Graves) for what I can only describe as a pop pastiche of post-rock meanderings where hardly a music genre is left untouched. Not all of it is bad. Whitney’s voice still sounds like a tantrum-throwing toddler spouting pseudo-political hokum (see “Bats Over the Pacific Ocean”) and Votolato’s guitar is still fiercely paging Dr. Know (“Jaguar Pirates”). “Georgia” is an ambitious take on indie-gospel, while “Vagabond Ballroom” rocks right up there with any Blood Brothers song ever released.
But, overall, Jaguar Love is to The Blood Brothers what International Noise Conspiracy is to Refused or what Rollins Band is to Black Flag. Rather than a new band with a new sound, Take Me to the Sea just plays out like a mediocre side project from three otherwise talented guys.
—Seth Combs
Jaguar Love plays Saturday, Aug. 9, at SOMA.
Published: 08/05/2008
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