Illmatic cultists mithered about this 1996 follow-up, but it’s aged magnificently (and they were wrong).
‘Amidst production from heavy hitters like Dr. Dre, Havoc of Mobb Deep and DJ Premier, Nas weaves evocative narratives of gang warfare, downtrodden neighborhoods, drug deals gone awry, and gangsta triumph, against a backdrop of samples from Sam Cooke, Etta James, the Isley Brothers, and even Chuck Mangione. With guest turns from Lauryn Hill, AZ, Foxy Brown, and Mobb Deep; classics like Street Dreams and If I Ruled The World.’

Nas lost his way a bit in the nineties.
Out in 2001 Stillmatic was a triumphant attempt to regain the ground charted by his debut LP Illmatic, seven years earlier. Radio friendliness went out the window: the sound of the underground was back, with songs about politics and ghetto life.
Producers like Large Professor, DJ Premier, L.E.S., and Trackmasters stepped up; AZ, Mary J. Blige and Amerie put in strong shifts.
Premier re-organizes Peabo Bryson and Roberta Flack to deadly effect on 2nd Childhood. Both Large Profs are killers. Ether disses Jay-Z in fine style.

Two teenagers’ amapiano music from Gauteng province in South Africa, drawing on jazz, folk, afro, deep and tech house, kwaito, and dibacardi… but sounding like none of them.

Top-notch deep house in a limited, one-sided, numbered edition, the flip silk-screened.

A moody, dubwise, to-the-barricades brew of jungle, rave, dubstep, and techno.
Over the five cuts, an opening, evocative, littoral play between discombobulation and mysticism gives way to mounting abrasiveness, before fetching up in the inner chambers of the temple room, echoing and spooky, with acoustic percussion.

Aka Jan Katsma of Bunker associates Syncom Data, stepping out with his first full solo release in three years. Six feverish, dubwise synth excursions, rumbling with restrained power; with passages as body-rocking as recent Katsma/SD contributions to mixtapes by Dettmann and Stingray, but always verging on acid disintegration.

A mixtape by DJ OD from Paris, messing around with live recordings copped off friends like Mike Cooper, Jay Glass Dubs, Don’t DJ and Rabih Beaini. Snazzy red tapes in white cases.