Illmatic has been noted by music writers for Nas' unique style of
delivery and
poetic substance. His lyrics contain layered
rhythms,
multisyllabic rhymes,
internal half rhymes,
assonance, and
enjambment. Music critic
Marc Lamont Hill of
PopMatters elaborates on Nas' lyricism and delivery throughout the album, stating "Nas' complex
rhyme patterns, clever
wordplay, and impressive vocab took the art [of
rapping] to previously unprecedented heights. Building on the pioneering work of
Kool G Rap,
Big Daddy Kane, and
Rakim, tracks like 'Halftime' and the laid back 'One Time 4 Your Mind' demonstrated a [high] level of technical precision and rhetorical dexterity." Hill cites "Memory Lane (Sittin' in da Park)" as "an exemplar of flawless lyricism", while critic Steve Juon wrote that the lyrics of the album's last song, "It Ain't Hard to Tell", are "just as quotable if not more-so than anything else on the LP – what album could end on a higher note than this?": {{blockquote| I rap for listeners,
blunt heads, fly ladies and prisoners
Hennessy holders and old school niggas, then I be dissin a Unofficial that smoke woolie thai I dropped out of
Cooley High, gassed up by a cokehead cutie pie Jungle survivor, fuck who's the live-r My man put the battery in my back, a difference from
Energizer Sentence begins indented, with formality My duration's infinite, money-wise or physiology Poetry, that's a part of me, retardedly
bop I drop the ancient manifested hip-hop, straight off the block I reminisce on park jams, my man was shot for his
sheep coat Chocolate blunts made me see him drop in my weed smoke {{blockquote| The buddha monk's in your trunk, turn the bass up Not stories by
Aesop, place your loot up, parties I shoot up Nas, I analyze, drop a jew-el, inhale from the
L School a fool well, you feel it like
braille It ain't hard to tell, I kick a skill like
Shaquille holds a
pill Vocabulary spills I'm Ill plus Matic, I freak beats slam it like
Iron Sheik Jam like a
TEC with correct techniques So analyze me, surprise me, but can't magmatize me Scannin' while you're plannin' ways to sabotage me I leave em froze like
her-on in your nose Nas'll rock well, it ain't hard to tell {{blockquote| Before a blunt, I take out my
fronts Then I start to front, matter of fact, I be on a manhunt You couldn't catch me in the streets without a ton of reefer That's like
Malcolm X catching a
Jungle Fever King poetic, too much flavor, I'm major
Atlanta ain't Brave-r, I pull a number like a pager 'Cause I'm a ace when I face the bass 40 side is the place that is giving me grace Now wait, another dose and you might be dead And I'm a
Nike head, I wear chains that excite the feds And ain't a damn thing gonna change I'm a performer, strange, so the mic wonder warmer was born to gain Nas, why did you do it? You know you got the mad fat fluid when you rhyme, it's halftime Focusing on poetic forms found in his lyrics,
Princeton University professor Imani Perry describes Nas' performance as that of a "poet-musician" indebted to the conventions of
jazz poetry. She suggests that Nas' lyricism might have been shaped by the "black art poetry album genre," pioneered by
Gil Scott-Heron,
The Last Poets, and
Nikki Giovanni.
Chicago-based poet and music critic Kevin Coval attributes Nas' lyricism to his unique approach to rapping, which he describes as a "fresh-out-the-rhyme-book presentation": "It's as if Nas, the poet, reporter, brings his notebook into the studio, hears the beat, and weaves his portraits on top with ill precision, and comments on the rapper's
vignettes of inner-city life, which are depicted using elaborate rhyme structures: "All the words, faces and bodies of an abandoned post-industrial, urban
dystopia are framed in Nas's tightly packed
stanzas. These portraits of his brain and community in handcuffs are beautiful, brutal and extremely complex, and they lend themselves to the complex and brilliantly compounded rhyme schemes he employs." == Production ==