The debut from the rapper Nas. Nas grew up in the notorious New York housing project Queensbridge and was living there as a young adult when Illmatic was recorded. Nas never slips into the basic gangsta-posturing of many West Coast acts or even the crack-empire daydreams of Jay-Z or Raekwon. Nas takes the perspective of a street hustler on the bottom rung of society trying to scrape a living but thinking of bigger things. "Be having dreams that I'm a gangster, drinking moets holding tecs / Making sure the cash came correct then I step / Investments Continue »