Nas: The Prophet

As a junior high school kid growing up in New York City during the 90’s, rap and hip hop determnined almost all aspects of my life. Hip hop influenced the music I listened to, the way Idressed, the way I spoke and acted to even the magazines I readand the tv shows I watched. But most importamtly the artist of the time I followed. In the 90’s I remember very vividly there were no bigger rap artists on the planet than Tupac and Biggie Smalls. Their music played from every teenager’s cd player orboom box, in every car with a potent stereo system, and their music was a must at every block party.  Biggie and Tupac’s names became synonomous with hip hop, it was almost impossible to mention hip hop and not mention them. They appealed to the masses through their music where they portrayed themseleves as outcasts in a society that did not offer  them a fair deal. This unequal treatment enabled them to do everything in their power to get even. In order to portary their message, they incorporated the street culture prevelant at the time: that of dealing drugs, violence and guns.  They used this as a means of empowerement for the many men and women who did not have  any power in their society. Although Biggie and Tupac were the most commercialized and best selling artist of this time, they soon had competiontion  from a skilled young rapper from Queensbridge.  At the height of their success, Nas captivates hip hop. Nas  was rapping about the same issues as Tupac andBiggie, although at this point if his career he was not as popular and his albums did not have as  much commercial success  . Nas kept true to his craft and soon became a beloved figure of this time.  Nas’ proliphic devlivery in his rap songs contributed to his overall appeal. While Biggie and Tupac’s lyrics were in your face and harsh, people loved it. Nas’s approach however wasdifferent;  he made his listeners take a step back. He wasn’t just going to inform you his challenges, through his rap he unvailed them like a masterfully created story.   As a listener, each song was an exeprience. It  became a journey in which you sympathized with the challenges he was  facing growing up  in Queensbridge.  This led to his listeners to analyze and appreciate the poetic style  in which he delivered his knowledge and embrace it.   Nas’ words were artisitc but simotenously raw and thruthful and at times they were very hard concepts to deal with. Nas’ first album Illmatic was an istant classic that cemented Nas as a force in Hip Hop.  Nas had arrived artistically with Illmatichis  prophethic style of rap ignited the imagination of many that remain part of a cult follwing that remanins loyal to this day.

American Empire is one of the most compelling urban histories published in the last few decades. Joshua Freeman sets out to undermine this exceptionalist view in his synthesis of American history after World War Two. American Empire is comprehensive in its sweep, but returns to three major themes such as firstly, extraordinary economic growth, especially in the quarter-century following World War Two; secondly, the proliferation of mass movements to bring the promise of democracy to fruition on the home front; thirdly, the dramatic expansion of American power in the world. furthermore, Befitting his interests, he emphasizes the economics dimension of the recent American past and highlights the certainly of social movements ( organized labor and Civil rights, particularly) in remarking the internal politics of the United States. On the third dimension, American foreign policy, Freeman is the most conventional. He assumes that American is an empire rather than defining exactly what that means. and unlike many of the most recent social and cultural historians writing on the subject, he leaves empire’s subjects mostly voiceless and, by implication, powerless.

In addition to this book tells the story of the United States during those years. it examines the political and economic structures of the country, daily life, regional and national culture, and the relationship between the United States and the rest of the world. Writer Freeman tells in doing so, it tries to explain why the United States took the particular path of development it did.

In the decades after World War Two, Americans rarely spoke of empire or imperialism, especially in relation to their society. Once common terms, widely used by both supporters and critics of policies meant to achieve control over foreign lands by the mid-twentieth century they had come to be seem as archaic and irrelevant to a world of decolonization and cold war.until the turn on of the new millennium, only on the political left during the vietnam era did imperialism get revived as a way of understanding the United States.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QD0D7IuriWQr