I saw it. It was good. I was shunning Nas for the longest. He was my favorite rapper growing up, but then he got on my bad side for what seemed to me like ostenanious displays of virtue. There were any number of incidents, like Summer Jam 2003 where he tried to lynch Jay-Z in effigy; the song These Are Our Heroes; the title "Hip-Hop is Dead"; the working title for "Untitled", etc. I honestly couldn't stand dude. Now I'm back off my high horse. Hearing some of his recent shit really takes me back. I was listening the whole time, but as a biased Jay-Z fan. I've made room in my psyche for both. My favorite part of the movie is when they linked up with Pete Rock. Shit had me amped. Another part is when Jungle was talking about everybody from the photo on the back of the album. Crazy how almost everyone from that picture is either dead or in jail. Speaking of which, they could've played Memory Lane a lot more.
I hear ya about the nauseating (pun intended) displays of virtue. No one expects humility in that industry, but the self-righteousness can be a turnoff. Hell, my first thought at the opening of the film was "Are you really that exceptional and your life that epic to make an autobiographical film at age 40?" Like when his friend was shot on the street -- while losing a friend/colleague like that is always formative in one's life, it doesn't exactly set him apart from the rest in the biz; there was no mystery or intrigue surrounding the circumstances. I agree with you also that the fun part was the interviews and old photos of the scene. I learned a few things - didn't know about some of the connections and, being far from NY at that time, I hadn't really noticed even that all these songs that we (way down south) were lovin were the product of such intense feuds among the burroughs. Maybe that's why I liked the film and wanted to know ya'll's thoughts. I can see it might not be as interesting to those who were there.
I know right? I was thinking that about that segment and wanted more discussion of "It Ain't Hard To Tell" and the use of the remix on the album as opposed to that version with the Biz sample.
Still don't know the name of the track. It wasn't on Life is Good, so I'm assuming it's new. It wasn't The Seasons either. It was some newer, nastier shit.
