By Johnny Firecloud

I wasn't going to write this review. I've been a Jay-Z fan for over a decade, and while that doesn't necessarily make me a loyalist, there was certainly a divide between Nas and the Hova world that left me feeling a bit... unqualified.

Besides, the controversy over the title was all we heard about the album for months. By default, it's usually the death rattle for a record when anything but the music itself gets such advance hype.

But not this time.

Most of Nas' previous work resides in the shadows of 1994's Illmatic, but chasing the dragon of his debut has yielded sicker rhymes than most rappers will come anywhere near on their best days. He doesn't fill bars to get through to the hook - almost every lyric in his catalogue seems plotted and structured to be as hard-hitting and poignant as possible. He's been the torch-bearer of battlelicious, intelligent rhymes for over a decade, increasingly visiting themes of inner-struggle. Specifically, he seemed torn between staying thuggishly spitfire and walking a higher road over the years (the highest road, actually, given his messiah complex) — but on Untitled, the rapper finally turns the fire outward. He takes the crushing urban manifesto of 2006's Hip Hop Is Dead and reaches for ambitious new heights, without the weight of self-righteousness that dragged some of his previous material down.

Untitled pulls no lyrical punches, but by no means does that take the fun out of things. Intensely and unapologetically political, Nas takes aim at institutional racism, the media, the failures of black leadership and the historical ironies of the "N" word, all without seeming to take himself too seriously. He shows his prowess on the opening track without breaking a sweat (just yet), dropping tight couplets for miles: You ain't as hot as I is/All of these false prophets is not messiahs/You don't know how high the sky is/The square mileage of Earth, or what pi is.

It wouldn't be a proper Nas album, however, without another hearty dose of the messianic declarations that have peppered his songs from day one. The savior theme certainly isn't a new one for Nas; He titled his 2002 album God's Son and has made repeated references to himself as rap's savior. On Hip Hop Is Dead, he went so far as to declare that the genre wouldn't survive without him. He stays true to the theme on lead single Hero, produced by Polow Da Don. Despite the head-to-tail ego stroke of once again claiming to be the "hero" of hip-hop, the song is absolutely perfect. Arrangement, lyrics, delivery, production, it's all there. It's songs like this one that showcase Nas' versatility, proving he can drop epics with the best of 'em.

He rattles the cage of musical double-standards on the track, with lines like Still in musical prison, in jail for the flow/ Try telling Bob Dylan, Bruce, or Billy Joel they can't sing what's in their soul.

The melancholy 80's electro-pop beats of America deliver a romanticized backdrop, concentrating the dramatic atmosphere under Nas' inimitable flow and scathing portrayal of a still-divided American culture. He cautiously ponders the prospect of President Obama on Black President (digging up Tupac for the hookline) and takes aim at Fox news with blistering intensity on the war-on-misinformation Sly Fox, featuring Nas' most addictively tongue-tying chorus to date, as well as an assault on decency hypocrisy: They say I'm all about murder-murder and kill-kill/ But what about Grindhouse and Kill Bill?/ What about Cheney and Halliburton?/The backdoor deals on oil fields/ How's Nas the most violent person?
The guest list is minimal and selective, most notably featuring Busta Rhymes on Fried Chicken, a fantastically funny Mark Ronson-produced ode to the greasy, flightless poultry delight that gives a little bit of a walking-contradiction essence to the album, battling racial issues while embracing the black American caricature. But let's not get all pissy about it - it's a great track and thematically stands apart from the rest of the album.

The Game and Chris Brown appear on the poppy and forgettable Make the World Go Round, a sugary bout of self-fellation that doesn't seem to fit in this collection. However, his chilling portrayal of the African American struggle on N.I.G.G.E.R. (The Slave and the Master) sugar-coats absolutely nothing, with imagery that's hard-hitting to anyone raised on a bottom-rung tax bracket:

Aluminum foil on t.v. antennas/ Little TV sit on top the big TV eatin TV dinners/ Girls dye their hair with kool-aid/ They gave us lemons we made lemonade

Bonus track Like Me sports a playful flute loop over a solid beat backing, laced with keyboards in a blaxploitation-era funk-soul burst of triumph.

Despite the lack of atmospheric continuity, with Untitled Nas finally raises the bar and steps out of his own shadow. He's traded bravado for honed insight and sociopolitical commentary this time around, and it suits him to a T. Chuck D should be proud.

Sure, an album called Nigger won't get sold in Wal-Mart, but “The people will always know what the real title of this album is, and what to call it," the rapper said.
I'll just call it my favorite Nas record.