Nas – Untitled

I have a perfect title for Nas’s new album: Sleepmatic. I can’t get through fifteen tracks on Untitled in a straight shot. Let’s just forget about the lifeless beats. Nas doesn’t care about them. Lyricism is where his heart beats, but he is just rambling about racism, politic, Fox News, fried chicken and roaches.

Nas is a gifted lyricist when he wants to be, but on Untitled most of his rhymes are comical. In “Roach Project,” he raps as a roach: “I’m creeping and crawling / in your sink or your toilet / I’ll be drinking from your spit
/ anything cause I’m more less an insect with four legs / people come and I fake dead
/ correction I got eight legs.” Then on “Fried Chicken” (featuring Busta Rhymes) he compares women to fried chicken: “Don’t know a part of you that I love best
/ your legs or your breast.” Elsewhere he sounds like rapping while sleeping: “Then I cop, then I yatch, then I dock.”

Album-opener “Queens Get the Money” is the only exceptional track. Accompanied by just a strange-sounding keyboard ostinato, Nas packs his words into one impressive verse that runs about two minutes long. It’s actually more like an intro than a song. Nas only pushed himself to a half-assed potential.