What’s most interesting about King’s Disease II is the selection of beats. This new follow-up, King’s Disease II, is even better, although it doesn’t have the same spark to it to make it as much of a hip-hop masterpiece as some of Nas’ other records have been. The first King’s Disease album, released only last year, saw him win the Grammy for Best Rap Album for the first time and was a pretty strong record. Though his career since then has been far from consistent, there are some clear highlights like Stillmatic, The Lost Tapes, God’s Son and the Kanye West produced NASIR from 2018 which, despite being a brief project, hinted that Nas was getting the hunger back that made his first two records as good as they were. His second record, It Was Written, was also excellent as it maintained Nas’ focus on sharing positivity and knowledge of self through his lyrics. It was concise, intelligent, unique and features a ridiculously strong roster of producers who made some of the most memorable and iconic beats in rap existence. Illmatic was an album that instantly found Nas in hip-hop’s hall of fame. It seems that this approach was pretty successful, as very quickly Nas was found by Columbia Records who were willing to give him practically anything and anyone he wanted to make his first record, Illmatic – a name recognised and respected by any hip-hop fan as one of the best rap records in the genre’s brief history. As a teen, Nas would do anything to try to get people to hear his music and even went so far as to start sticking tapes of his music all over New York City attaching them to trees, benches, walls and street lamps in an attempt to spread his work to people who might be able to move his career forward. Nas‘ rise to rap superstardom is easily one of the most inspiring stories in hip-hop.
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