Thursday, November 15, 2018

Revisiting the Nas' Article I wrote for The University News

I remember back in the days, where I was walking around Best Buy, and I saw two albums that intrigued me.  One was a live Dave Matthews album, and the other was Nas' Street's Disciple, an intriguing double-disc where the album cover was basically like a modern day version of the Last Supper, and I thought the design was very creative.


Nas' Street's Disciple is one of my favorite underrated albums, and I still enjoy listening to songs off that album to this day.

I decided to buy both albums, and I was glad I bought that Nas' album.  Listening to those songs reinvigorated my love in listening to his music, and I'm still a big fan of his work today, as he's one of the best hip-hop musicians alive.

I really dug this album, and even though it received virtually no advertisement, I was hooked on this album, and his songs.  Some of my closest college friends were writers on the school newspaper, so I decided to give it a try, and on the first chance, I sent it to editor, Jon Butler.  He liked what I wrote, and alas, my submission became an article.

In fact, you can find my old article on Nas' Street's Disciple double-disc album on the web:

Lu, Alan. "‘Disciple’ packs a powerful hip-hop message."  The University News.  March 16, 2005. 
https://unewsonline.com/2005/03/17/disciplepacksapowerfulhiphopmessage/

Here are some interesting stuff and tidbits about my old article:
My favorite song, was and still is my favorite song on that album, is Street's Disciple from Nas featuring Olu Dara.

I think I was a little too harsh on the song, Virgo from Nas featuring Ludacris, especially since I regularly listen to both artists, as I'm a big fan of both of them.  I also think I was too harsh on Nastradamus, but I still enjoy Illmatic, Stillmatic, and God's Son.  I did listen more to It Was Written later on, and I'm also a fan of that album as well.

Quan did a very good job singing in the Just a Moment song, and he is an underrated artist as I felt his part of the song was both touching and soulful, but unfortunately, I did not espouse much on this song, as this may have been due to a word count limit.

Also, a post-article note was that Nas and Jay-Z later patched up their differences for good, as they later did a track together called, "Black Republican" on Nas' Hip-Hop is Dead album.  And currently, Nas is one of my favorite hip-hop artists to listen to today.

In summary, I wrote two music articles for The University News, as I dabbled in newspaper writing.  I also wrote a favorable review for Kanye West's Late Registration under editor Diana Benanti and editor-in-chief Andrew Ivers.  It made the newspaper publication back then, but not the online version because it was sent in Word Perfect, and not Microsoft Word, as I did not start out with that program in the beginning of my junior year.

Anyways, that's all for now, as that was a blast from the past.  Hope you enjoyed this, and thank you for reading. 

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