Nas

Illmatic 30 Year Anniversary Tour

Nas brings back the "Golden Era": 30 years after the release of his debut album, the East Coast rap visionary is coming on the "Illmatic" anniversary tour!

Nas is bringing back the "Golden Era": 30 years after the release of his debut album, the East Coast rap visionary is going on an "Illmatic" anniversary tour! After the New Yorker played an exclusive show together with the Wu-Tang Clan in Berlin's Wuhlheide last summer, this time five concerts in German-speaking countries are on the program. In addition to Cologne, Berlin and Offenbach, exclusive concerts are also planned in Zurich and Vienna.

April 19 is a special day in hip-hop history: when the then 20-year-old Nasir Jones aka Nas released his debut album "Illmatic" on this day in 1994, a new era in hip-hop began - and an exceptional career that would continue to produce new streaming hits in the current decade. Exactly 30 years later to the day, the NYC legend is using the date to announce his upcoming "Illmatic" anniversary tour.

In fact, this rap masterpiece has been unavoidable for three decades: "Il-lmatic" is the epitome of Nineties and East Coast hip-hop. It also marked the start of the "Golden Era" in hip-hop and kicked off a career that has produced 17 studio albums to date - quite a few of them just as iconic as the debut. While albums such as "It Was Written", "I Am", "Life Is Good" and "King's Disease" (2020), which won a Grammy Award in 2021, also contain a number of classic tracks, it was ultimately "Illmatic" that all subsequent releases were measured against.

No wonder, because Nas had already defined his trademark sound with the first album: his flow was calmer, more controlled, his vocabulary much larger, the complex rhyme structures in part completely new - and the depth of the lyrics even earned him comparisons with poets such as Langston Hughes. Although it was later even described as the "pinnacle of hip-hop's greatest era" (Matthew Gasteier), "Illmatic" was certainly not Nas' greatest commercial success. Nevertheless, Nasir Jones and his producers (DJ Premier, Large Professor) had contributed 10 immortal tracks to the canon of hip-hop culture, of which "N.Y. State Of Mind", "It Ain't Hard To Tell" and "The World Is Yours" are just the tip of the spear.

30 years later, the son of jazz trumpeter Olu Dara, who hails from the Queensbridge ghetto, is busier than ever: after a comparatively quiet last decade in which Nas only released two longplayers, he has released six (!) studio albums since 2020, three volumes each from the "King's Disease" and "Magic" album series.

"Nas is an author, and he needs our attention," the US press once wrote about the NYC rapper, for whom artistic vision, credibility and commercial success go hand in hand for once. The then 51-year-old will return to the beginnings of this exceptional career together with his fans when he celebrates the "Illmatic" anniversary on stage in October and November.

Runtime: Sun, 27/10/2024 to Fri, 08/11/2024

Next date: NAS - Illmatic 30 Year Anniversary Tour

• Date Sunday, 03/November/2024 20:00 (1 more date)
• Venue Uber Eats Music Hall
• Address Uber Platz 2, 10243 Berlin-Friedrichshain