A Book About Nas... Chapter One: Making Illmatic

He knew he was the best rapper in the game before he was done recording

Nas made Illmatic surrounded by gallons of Hennessy, a cloud of smoke and a bunch of Queens niggas who put pressure on him to tell his story without anything fake. Ill Will wasn’t there. Nas’s best friend in the world had recently been murdered but he had to soldier on. That’s what Will would’ve wanted. But it was hard.

A lot of Illmatic was written when Nas was about 16. By the time he got to the studio, he’d already written one verse of this song, one verse of that song, and lots of hooks. When he got in the booth and started laying down rhymes, he knew nobody was fucking with him as an MC. Before his album was done, he knew he was the best in the game.