Representing New York’s seizure of hip-hop’s limelight from the booming West Coast scene in the Nineties, debut albums are rarely as iconic as Nas’s ‘Illmatic’. Released in 1994, the twenty-year-old Queens rapper’s quality, hard-hitting flows met rough-hewn production from DJ Premier, Pete Rock and a minor galaxy of others. Simply, one of the finest albums in hip-hop history.
