Free Nas's Illmatic by Matthew Gasteier Page A

boils up until it explodes. “Whenever frustrated I’m a hijacked Delta,” he says.
    The cinematic qualities of “N.Y. State of Mind” are clear, with scenes sweeping through building lobbies and hallways mixed with vivid dreams of glamor and violence. Even without
Wild Style’s
front-and-center nod, it’s obvious that Nas loves film. He begins “One Time 4 Your Mind” by explaining “when I’m chillin’, I grab the bhudda, get my crew to buy beers and watch a flick, illin’ and root for the villain.” Not even one verse into the record the first reference to
Scarface
pops up when Nas says he’s “like Scarface sniffin’ cocaine holdin’ a M-16.” The film is referenced again with the title of “The World Is Yours,” a rallying cry for Al Pacino’s soon-to-be kingpin (ironically, Nas watches the non-violent leader Gandhi’s biopic in the first line of the song).
    Art would imitate art in the other direction four years later, when Nas starred in Hype Williams’s
Belly
. The film is a complex challenge to the violence and self-destruction of the Black community it depicts, yet the stylized camera work is so beautiful that it is hard to look away when even the most disturbing events are displayed, severely lessening the film’s impact. In a side scene, Nas’s character Sincere visits an old housing project where there is a twelve-year-old boy simply referred to as “Shorty.” Though the conversation is not, exactly the same, this scene is essentially adapted from thethird verse of “One Love,” thirty-six bars that are arguably Nas’s greatest moment on
Illmatic
.
    It’s not surprising that Williams would want to pull the tone and style of this verse into a movie. The words are undoubtedly beautiful, but Nas uses setting, dialogue, and visual cues like a filmmaker crafts a scene. Williams saw more in it, as he explained to Vibe: “I wanted to include it in the movie because it represented everything I wanted to say about youth culture and its relationship to rap music. These aren’t just lyrics that these guys write; they are a part of something bigger.”
    This indicates that what Williams heard in the verse was something akin to Dr. Frankenstein meeting his monster, but Nas seems to be angling for something less about his art form and more about his environment. Placed after his notes to friends in prison, the story is more about coming to terms with what he has become. He looks at the kid slinging rocks and smoking blunts and sees himself, not just a younger version, but a stagnant version. Unless he strives for something different, this is his reality. “One Love,” with its reserved hopefulness, its struggle for redemption in the face of sin (not to get ahead of ourselves), is an acknowledgment of the life that Nas leads and the reality that he fears he will never escape.
    Nas’s foray into cinema was bound to happen. He’s frequently stated in interviews that he wants to go to film school, and even in verses that haven’t been sampled for films it’s easy to see why. As an emcee he has a truly cinematic eye. Along with the earlier mentioned specifics and story arcs, his music is nothing if not visual, conjuring up images of broken corners and hazy days. “N.Y. State of Mind” plays like
cinéma vérité
, weaving its way through stairwells, lobbies, and streets crawling with cops and crews, while “One Love” is mournful and poetic, like a Terrence Malick film. And like the inherentcontradiction of creating truth with a medium that projects the illusion of movement at 24 frames per second, Nas’s reality is clouded through youthful but confident eyes.
    Nas called his record a “reality storybook” before it was released. Unsurprisingly, this is a perfect way of putting it. “Storybook” has a certain connotation: one thinks of childhood tales of fantastic places and adventures. “Reality” is what we hide from children, what we think they are not able to handle. We protect