Album Review – ‘King’s Disease’ by Nas

RUN DOWN OF ‘KING’S DISEASE’ BY NAS

Unifying different times and avenues throughout Hip-Hop, NAS & Hit-Boy locked in and created a masterpiece. ‘King’s Disease’ is exactly what every generation of Hip-Hop needed. The Hit-Boy produced project captures the abstract bars NAS threads together, while adding a modern sway to it.

Even though this project features many young artists and has a modern sound to it, it still holds a nostalgic feel to it. With the project featuring artists like Lil Durk, A$AP FERG, Don Toliver among other young artists, we couldn’t imagine what this project would sound like.

During my time listening to this project, I was blown away by how the different sounds everyone took on meshed together so well. The younger artists & NAS made it clear that they can rock out to any style.

‘King’s Disease’ is the self-titled track that kicks off this masterpiece. The track is 1:51 and sets a very calm melody for NAS to lyrically surf through. Holding a very clear NAS sound in the intro, NAS continues to lyrically paint portraits through ‘Blue Benz’ & ‘Car #85’. The things that really stood out were the way NAS had punchlines that seemed to be comprised of metaphors referencing a love relationship & the legendary Charlie Wilson.

‘Ultra Black’ was the single that was out before the project dropped, it fit’s perfectly in the order that this project is set up in. The following track ’27 Summers’ was the most new age sounding track NAS had on this project, if this is what “NEW NAS” is than I’m sold. Over the next four tracks, we see a bombardment of features.

‘Replace Me’ has my favorite hook performed by Don Toliver, who set the perfect bridge between Nas’s verse & Big Sean’s. The two heavily dug into their bag when it came to metaphors and their soothing flow really meshed well not only with eachother, but with Don aswell. ‘Til The War Is Won’ was the track I was worried about the most, yet ended up being one of the most impressive tracks. I didn’t know what to expect from Nas & Durk with how different their sounds are, but I wish this track didn’t end. It was well constructed the only thing I think could have made it my favorite was a larger portion from durk.

‘All Bad’ is my favorite track on this project! Nas & .Paak were meant to work together, no question about it. The song sounded like it belonged to .Paak, until Nas came back amped up on his second verse. ‘The Definition’ was a track that showed Brucie B. shining next to Nas.

The track everyone’s ear perked up to was the reunion of The Firm. ‘Full Circle’ was bar for bar the most lyrical tune of this project. Seeing Nas, AZ, Foxy Brown & Cormega teaming up again was special. You couldn’t help but want more projects from them, they also set the runway for Nas to coast solo on the next two tracks ’10 Points’ & ‘The Cure’.

The album ends with ‘Spicy’, this tune is a great send off where Favio Foreign & Ferg match this projects energy. With the changing beat, a killer hook adlibs, this trio is an insane combo.

This is exactly the project I’ve been waiting for from Nas, now it’s safe to say it was worth the wait. This project is gold, but my biggest take away is how talented Hit-Boy is, the sound created through this project is timeless and different from anything else.

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