One of my favorite things in the world is an intelligent look into street music. Jon Caramanica is that fucking guy at the NY Times.

It’s been so long since the once-legendary rapper Nas lived up to the promise of his early albums that the base expectation for his new music is disappointment. So it’s been jarring recently to hear him on Hot 97 (97.1 FM in New York), on a new song, sounding like the rapper he was in the mid-1990s: wise, with a sharp eye for detail; pouring phrases together in dizzying jumbles; and showing off the pain that throbs beneath the calluses formed by years of exposure to the streets. 

Rick Ross Made Me Great