32 years ago today, Nasir Jones, better known as Nas, dropped his groundbreaking debut album Illmatic, forever changing the ...

Even when he was too young to have one, Nas was fixated on the past. His breakout moment, the starmaking first verse from ...

There was no way to know it at the time, but mainstream hip-hop reached its creative peak in the ’90s. Lyrical dexterity and thematic ambition were still widely valued. Complex beats could still be ...

It is a fact that the number of prominent rappers who’ve remained continuously active since the ’90s can be counted on one hand. One of them, Nasir Jones — or Nas — has recently experienced a dramatic ...

Two hip-hop icons deliver a heartwarming collaboration on Light-Years, the final installment in Mass Appeal's “Legend Has It…” series Yet the overriding feeling of Light-Years is of two elder ...

All-time rap greats Nas and DJ Premier have been working together for more than three decades. Premier produced three of the 10 tracks on Nas' almighty 1994 debut Illmatic, and the two have made a lot ...

Nas and DJ Premier revisit their creative chemistry from Illmatic with new material that nods to past classics. The project reflects a decades-long collaboration that helped shape the sound of East ...

It took decades of pestering, but golden-era hip-hop heads finally got their wish. The duo’s synergy has been obvious since the Queensbridge rapper’s 1994 debut, Illmatic, which features three ...

Any objective rap fan of a certain age approaches legacy albums like Nas and DJ Premier’s Light-Years with learned skepticism. For 30-odd years, rap was exclusively a young person’s game, defined by ...

Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio. On Friday (Dec. 12), hip-hop fans were gifted with an album 30 years in ...

It’s the second week of December, the year-end lists keep coming (our list of the 50 best punk albums of 2025 went up today), but the year is still not over yet. I highlight five new albums below. On ...

Nas and DJ Premier have released an album rap fans have anticipated for more than 30 years. Light-Years hit streaming services last night, and in all honesty, there was no way this project could fully ...