Hip hopper puts soul back in rap
By JOSHUA OSTROFF
The Globe and Mail

Hip hop is built for bold statements -- but even so, no rapper had declared the entire genre dead until Nas's eighth solo album dropped last fall.

"This is the funeral," the New York icon shouted over the strains of Hip Hop is Dead's Inna Gadda Da Vida-sampling title track, but with so much energy at this capacity concert, you'd be hard-pressed even arguing it was an Irish wake.

In reality, a Nas gig circa 2007 represents a return to the birthplace of hip hop. In Toronto this week, he brought no flashy dancers, no fancy visuals, not even a hype man to make the crowd say "ho." He had one mic, one DJ and a way with words that makes poets covetous.

Nas opened with a thesis-establishing set from the new album -- Money Over ********, Carry on Tradition and Hip Hop is Dead, on which he rhymed: "everybody sound the same/ commercialize the game/ reminiscing when it wasn't all business."

He later reminisced himself, spitting a few lines from Live at the Barbecue, his legendary 1991 recording debut with Toronto act Main Source. But unlike most of his peers from that bygone era, Nas has stayed in the game.

Oftentimes, that involved going over to the dark side -- something he readily admits in his new Jay-Z collaboration Black Republican -- and his classics-packed performance didn't ignore forays like the sex-rap Oochie Wally or his wannabe-gangster Nas Escobar persona.

But he did concentrate on fan faves such as N.Y. State of Mind, Life's a ***** and The World is Yours from his street-level Illmatic LP, the '94 album that made his lyrical rep -- though Got Ur Self a Gun and the arms-up anthem One Mic from his 2001 return-to-form Stillmatic proved just as powerful.

Admittedly, only a few songs, like the Gothic horror chords of Hate Me Now, broke up the same-sounding boom-bap beats. But it's hard to complain when so much modern rap boasts hot production behind embarrassing rhymes, whereas Nas is all about the possibilities of language and the way words bounce off each other -- sonically, contextually and metaphorically.

So when he brought the house down with closer Made You Look from 2002's God's Son -- in particular its indelible line "you a slave to a page in my rhyme book" -- the show's funereal shtick came into focus.

What Nas means is that hip hop is dead inside, that it sold its lyrical soul for commercial success, 20-inch rims and diamond-encrusted dental wear. But onstage tonight -- recalling his artistic trajectory from teenage street poet to radio-friendly hustler to clear-eyed comeback kid -- you realize what Nas now symbolizes. Just because you sold out, doesn't mean you can't steal your soul back.