Spit in the air and it’ll land on someone with Nas in their list of all-time rappers. If not, it’ll land on someone with DJ Premier in their top five producers. Needless to say, their new collaborative album ‘Light-Years’ has been a hotly anticipated prospect, especially as fans have known of its existence for two decades.
More than 30 years into their careers and with more than 40 albums under their belts (not counting Preemo’s extensive production discography), ‘Light-Years’ doesn't do much to move their well established needles, but it does show the duo doing what they do best.
Nas’s lyricism and flow remains one of the most effective in the game, while DJ Premier’s encyclopaedic admiration for music once again shines through in his beat selection.
My Life Is Real feels like a time capsule to the early ‘90s with jaunty keys and the steady boom bap that Nas’s voice has become synonymous with. “I’m on jets with giants / I’m Bill Parcell” he spits with ease and infectious confidence.
GiT Ready continues that feeling: “Serial investor, serial killer threat / turn ether to Ethereum, y’all wanna bet?” he says while bigging up his entrepreneurial spirit.
But it's the centre of the tracklist where ‘Light-Years’ really shines, becoming a love letter to underground hip hop. On Bouquet (For The Ladies) Nas shouts out everybody from DeJ Loaf and Gangsta Boo to Ice Spice and Cardi B; Writers is a song about graffiti artists and encourages new writers to “keep bombing” while shouting out a litany of global artists; Pause Tapes is all about making your first beats with a tape recorder and a radio; and Junkie hears Nas speak of his addiction to rap.
‘Light-Years’ exists as a celebration of the culture, written and narrated by two of its most celebrated proponents. When Nas goes all Bad Meets Evil on Nasty Esco Nasir, arguing between his ‘Illmatic’-era Nasty Nas persona, his mid-era mafioso Nas Escobar and Nasir himself, it’s a trip through distinct decades and the evolution of rap.
With hip hop continuing to evolve and stray farther from those boom bap days, ‘Light-Years’ is testament to the fact that the old school still has its place, and as long as we’ve got figureheads like Nas and DJ Premier at the helm, it’ll never go away.
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