Track Review ⊙ Daily Ops Home
Nas :: "Where Y'all At"From Hip Hop Is Dead (Def Jam; 2006)
Remi made me look. He holds a distant, eerie whine and lets it linger long on each of its three rising tones, that last high whistle pitch stretching out until it evaporates, waiting in vain for dogs to bark back. The drums are echoes of thieves’ boots splashing puddles a block over. Vocal hiccups dribble off bricks and mortar. And now I can feel what Nas feels as he, coughing and peering into the shadows, steals forward on the putter of that bass. “Where y’all at,” indeed. Salaam’s never been better; even Primo’s impressed, saying that he felt the need to step up his game to compete for spots on Hip Hop Is Dead. So I’m hoping that we’re not gonna have to worry about Nasir’s Achilles ear for beats, especially when “Where Y’all At” serves as such a sterling example of what His Illness can do when inspired by the right music.
This is Nas cruising in a “Rolls Royce like the king of Nigeria,” tinted windows and tinted eyes making Queens look empty. Separated from others by the wealth to his name, Nas is a ghost that can’t sense the living. Shit, it’s been a long time since I’ve heard rhymes that say “old” and “alone” as well as the bar that starts this song, where Nas calls himself a phantom “bumpin’ Aaron Neville.” He brilliantly brags on his hustle: “More chains than slaves”; “I can sell sand to an Arab”; “Money’s my bitch / and we stay intimate,” etc. Even in those lines, though, and especially in his blunt delivery, there’s ambiguity, and elsewhere concretes hint at a scary psychological debt; “Diamonds flashin’ / Almost put a million cash in my mommy casket” lumps the throat, so when Nas turns around and finishes with “Seen more green than St. Patrick-trick-trick,” it’s a joke that chokes.
Salaam Remi’s Omega Man backdrop places Nas in a harsh and narrow spotlight; we get to see in sharp clarity the accessories and insides of a man who can’t see us. Forced to deal too much in the theoretical, a rapper of lesser stature, experience or fame couldn’t write this song. For Nas, the vacant set is real. The passages of success and time have made old haunts unhauntable. Absence has become the ultimate ghoul. We’re convinced because Nas tells it to us like we’re walls.
Chet Betz :: 10 July 2006 |
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