Review: Music icon celebrates landmark work in brilliant new way

Nas gave fans a night to truly remember And it was also something they had likely never seen before The elite rapper who upped the hip-hop meeting in breathtaking solutions when he made his debut on the national scene in the s made his Bay Area debut with a symphony orchestra on Wednesday Nov at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco The conclusion was nothing short of spellbinding Nas who has been doing these orchestral collaborations in a small number of very fortunate cities combined forces with the Berkeley Symphony and a live band consisting of a DJ bassist keyboardist and drummer to bring his songs to life in avenues that specific old-school fans might never imagined Two turntables and a string section Yeah that works fantastic And we haven t even gotten to the best part yet The thing that truly made this evening extra special was that Nas and company were celebrating the plus year anniversary of what several regard as the greatest hip-hop album of all time Nas groundbreaking Illmatic debut from Related Articles Journey announces farewell tour but it does not include Bay Area date amazing Bay Area things to do this weekend Bay Area arts great shows and concerts to catch in the Bay Area Peter McPoland takes a very different path with latest album Brandon Lake brings big concert tour to San Jose Sacramento Making his appearance on stage just before p m Nas rapped and rolled through nearly the entire Illmatic album with just One Time Your Mind missing from the setlist in just under minutes He looked snazzy cool fronting the symphony in a classic black tuxedo and coming across as a kind of Rat Pack Rapper and sounded great as he relived these lines that pretty much everybody in the house knew by heart That must have been a new sensation for the Berkeley Symphony to be meticulously following the points with their cellos violins etc while thousands of voices bellowed out in harmony from the crowd I m guessing hoping that won t happen when the symphony performs Shostakovich s Ninth Symphony on Nov at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley Although I could be wrong You can find out for yourself by grabbing tickets via berkeleysymphony org The chorus of voices just further underscored that Illmatic is not just another record to hip-hop fans especially to those who were listening to the genre in the s but rather a landmark platter that has served as a soundtrack to millions of lives over the decades And it continues to hold such an iconic place in the genre to this day with Billboard magazine having ranked Illmatic at No just one notch ahead of Dr Dre s The Chronic on its list of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time Frisco Nas commented as he greeted the audience We are going to go back in time years years since I dropped my debut album As Nas raced through the cuts not thoroughly in order all the things that make Illmatic so special were also on display The rhymes are wicked smart clever and memorable The production work is complex and thoughtful moving all over the sonic map in ingenus approaches which the symphonic accompaniment only underscored And of unit the storytelling Nas true calling card for his entire career is solely unparalleled It s that storytelling ability that makes Memory Lane Sittin in da Park so appealing captivating listeners with lyrics that seem both utterly personal and entirely universal That s not to say however that the song s author doesn t occasionally question these lyrics more than three decades after he wrote them Wow Nas commented at the song s conclusion What the expletive was I smoking back then Nas brought the symphony segment to a close with the last song on the cassette tape the Illmatic closer It Ain t Hard to Tell This one got me into your living rooms on Yo MTV Raps Nas commented Having put that debut album to bed and allowed the symphony to exit the stage Nas stock around with the live band to perform a dizzying array of song snippets hailing from elsewhere in his catalog Kicking off this encore second set with The Message from It Was Written the nearly as great follow-up to Illmatic Nas would knock out portions of about a dozen songs in just a half an hour The crowd loved every note and line cheering and trilling along with the hip-hop icon as he rocked through Got Ur Self a Gun Spicy and other favorites Nas saved several of his very best for last closing the -minute production with a triple shot of Made You Look If I Ruled the World Imagine That and One Mic that served as a thorough reminder to these fans who really didn t need a reminder that they d just seen one of the greatest of all time Nas setlist The Genesis N Y State of Mind The World Is Yours Halftime Memory Lane Sittin in da Park Life s a Bitch One Love Represent It Ain t Hard to Tell Set The Message Got Ur Self a Gun Spicy The Don Hot Boyz Oochie Wally You Owe Me Affirmative Action Phone Tap Sugar Hill Made You Look If I Ruled the World Imagine That One Mic Note Set setlist draws from selected information from setlist fm