Nas & Damian Marley ft. Lil Wayne – My Generation
And Damian looked into his eyes, and thought: “That sure is one thick cut of meat”…
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[4.50]
Chuck Eddy: You aren’t the world, you aren’t the children, why don’t you all f-f-fade away? Though I might be less cynical if actual children were singing.
[4]
Mallory O’Donnell: I won’t fault Nas’ intentions, trying to kick knowledge and all that, but his taste is vigorously wide of the mark. Why is it so hard for him to leave dubious crossover moves and children’s choruses alone? Of course it’s wrong of us to expect the dude to repeat (or escape the shadow of) his debut, but he might at least stop over-reaching it in such a crude and pompous way.
[2]
John Seroff: M. O’Donnell’s reference to Nas as “rap’s thinnest piece of meat” in last week’s Jukebox led to a spirited and challopsy back-and-forth in the comments section that culminated with Mallory pointing to this track as proof that Nasty Nas never had it, never will. I’m not gonna say that “My Generation” is so bad that it validates revisionist history, but “Generation” certainly earns its place among Nasir’s least impressive efforts; rarely have the children sounded so little like the future.
[3]
Alfred Soto: Lil Wayne’s Damien Marley imitation surpasses Damien Marley’s. As for Nas, the album boasts his more trenchant moments. Hectoring doesn’t suit his timbre.
[6]
Michaelangelo Matos: They got a useful verse out of Wayne! I’d stopped paying attention to those a while back, so it’s good to hear (I’m sure I’ve missed a few). Elsewhere, Nas & Damien make nice without sounding like utter twerps; Michael Franti should be frantically taking notes.
[7]
Martin Skidmore: A chorus of kids singing how their generation will make a change is a Band-Aid kind of start to this, and Damien’s mechanically rapped reggae vocal doesn’t help. Nor does Joss Stone’s retro stylings at the back. Nas is rather more imaginative – there’s been a lot of dissing of him here lately, but I retain some fondness and respect for him. Wayne raps about himself rather more than the song requires, amusingly.
[5]
Oh, he definitely at one point had it. His first record is great, and he’s had a handful of great tracks since, some of them recent. My only real point (annoyed 2 AM comments aside) is that he’s at his best (or least worst) when surrounded by a simple, streetwise production and not a bunch of pop moves. But I will get behind “Made You Look” any day of the week.
This is a more reasonable position, although I would venture to guess that you could make a double or triple album of his “handful” of post-Illmatic great tracks.
I was making a Sprite reference, but carry on.
er 7up
I have the 7UP dude’s cookbook.
Err, this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Holder