(AllHipHop News) Not many albums have impacted the Hip Hop landscape like Illmatic. Then again, there are not many albums like good kid, mAAd city. During a recent interview, Nas addressed the comparisons between his debut album and Kendrick Lamar’s and spoke on what Lamar needs to do on his sophomore album.
In his interview with Complex Magazine, Nas stated that “the Internet made the world smaller, so it’s easier now for people to hear your music” as opposed to when he was a new artist in the early 90s with limited means of reaching the masses outside of “radio record” According to Nas, the difference in era is the main reason you can not compare good kid, mAAd city to Illmatic:
No, it’s not a fair comparison to me because Illmatic represented a different time and a different expression for different reasons. The times inspired the sound of that—the climate of the music business, the rap game, the industry, the year, and life in itself. It’s not fair to Kendrick’s album either because his album is a brand new expression that represents these times, the sound represents what’s happening now, he’s changing things today.
Nas says Kendrick Lamar is similarly”an album guy” and not one solely making hit singles. When asked what advice he would give Lamar on following up a classic debut album, Nas reveals that you have to keep everything in perspective:
You’ll never be bigger than hip-hop. I wanna be big but I’ll never be bigger than hip-hop. If I become bigger than hip-hop, then I’m Madonna, I’m a diva. I know plenty divas in this s###, new artists and old. Rap Divas. But none of us is bigger than hip-hop and none of us will ever be.
Check out the full interview here.