Free Nas's Illmatic by Matthew Gasteier

and Hector clearly feels his decision is the more mature one.
    This battle, between two brother s from a struggling family, goes hand in hand with the battle of
Illmatic
. Here is the immediate rush that comes with the realization that you are no longer as young as you once were, that you must make the decisions that will affect the rest of your life, that now is the time to “stop fucking around and be a man.” Zoro has retreated into his own imagination; his reality is wrapped up in fantasy, splashed in bright colors across train cars and bedroom walls. Hector has offered up his body in the ultimate sacrifice, because he believes the only option in his reality to make it out of the neighborhood is to join the military. Like these two conflicting worldviews, the record is about surviving, about getting out, but it’s also about retaining the energy that pulses through the intro, holding onto the dreams of youth.
    “N.Y. State of Mind,” the first real song on the record, sets up Nas’s battle with his perception of self-potential, his fantasy of a better tomorrow, and the reality around him. In the first verse, his steps are careful and deliberate. He depicts a war zone. “I’m suited up in street clothes/hand me a nine and I’ll defeat foes.” He twists humor out of dark situations. “On the corner bettin’ Grants with the cee-lo champs/laughin’ at baseheads tryin’ to sell some broken amps
    He slows into the chorus with two couplets that are vintage Nas:
    It drops deep, as it does in my breath
    I never sleep, ‘cause sleep is the cousin of death
    Beyond the walls of intelligence, life is defined
    I think of crime, when I’m in a New York state of mind
    Here Nas tightens the battle between fantasy and reality. In the third bar here, Nas argues that the safe place he has created in his head to develop himself as a person is nothing without his surroundings. Life is not you; it is the moment when you confront everything around you. And though never sleeping has immediate implications of nervousness and constant vigil, the line digs deeper than that. When you sleep, you dream, and dreaming here is equated with failing to survive the daily struggle.
    Still, Nas begins the second verse by admitting that he’s “havin’ dreams that I’m a gangster, drinkin’ Moets, holdin’ Tecs” and carries on for three more bars before dropping back down to earth. “But just a nigga,” he says, “walkin’ with a finger on the trigger.” If you only listen casually, you might miss it. After all, his brags of “investments in stocks” and “winnin’ gunfights with mega cops” sound natural in today’s oversized kingpin battles.
    It only makes more sense when you realize these two sections—one of fantasy, the other of reality—were actually two separate pieces from demo songs Nas had recorded. The reality side of the combination begins “I’m a Villain,” the early Nas record. The fantasy comes from “Just Another Day in the Projects,” which stretches the dream out into a full verse (“but on my head was a price/I make the bad guys in
Miami Vice
looks nice.”). In the second verse, he wakes up and realizes he passed out watching
Scarface
, the Brian DePalma-helmed gangster epic that has become iconic in the hip hop community. He proceeds to document his real life, “just another day in the projects,” which involves his far more familiar brushes with the law and trips to the store for phillies.
    This section of “N.Y. State of Mind” is conceptually similar to the structure of “Just Another Day in the Projects.” But by making the division more subtle and, for his protagonist, more jarring by removing the chorus break, the emotional impact is stronger, and the contradiction between his fantasy and his reality more apparent. It forces a more powerful reaction when his inability to reconcile who he is in his mind with who he is “beyond the walls of intelligence” breeds anger and stress that