Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones -- better known to you and me as simply Nas -- was barely out of his teens and already an underground hip-hop hotshot when Illmatic arrived via Columbia Records to a whole lotta hype and great, great expectations in April of 1994.

It seems incredible, in hindsight, not just that such a monumental rap record was the young MC's very first album but also that, at the time, it wound up being viewed as something of a commercial flop. Illmatic was in it for the long game, though, and has rightly assumed its place alongside the greatest hip-hop albums of all time over the years hence. It still sounds as fresh as it did in 1994, with Nas's eloquently tricky street-life rhymes -- drawn from his experiences growing up in the Queensbridge housing projects in Queens, New York -- dancing atop unfussy, hard-edged-but-elegant production from the likes of DJ Premier, Q-Tip, Pete Rock and Large Professor. East Coast hip-hop would never be quite the same. Hell, hip-hop in general would never be quite the same. It just took a little extra time for the world at large to catch up with Illmatic's greatness. But catch up it did. 

TRACKLISTING:

1. The Genesis
2. N.Y. State of Mind
3. Life's A Bitch
4. The World Is Yours
5. Halftime
6. Memory Lane (Sittin' In Da Park)
7. One Love
8. One Time 4 Your Mind
9. Represent
10. It Ain't Hard To Tell