>I feel you on this. The beats are mostly pleasant, but kinda
>lack in the knock department. The second half of "The Cure"
>makes me wonder how great this album could've been if they
>spent more time in that lane. You can tell Nas was feeling
>that track on a different level by his delivery.

Exactly - the knock department. And when beats for someone like Nas lack that, in my opinion, they have to have something more to make up for it. I guess that something more can be the lush atmosphere that you could find in Alchemist's less drum-focused or "beatless" work. A good example of this working well on King's Disease is the first track. The song doesn't knock, but it still fits with Nas very well. It doesn't have to knock because of how well the sample is used - it's a gorgeous beat.

Now that I think about it, Nas' selection of Hit-Boy's beats, which are serviceable but mostly tame, could be a reflection of that at his age he isn't about to take risks - not that I or any other Nas fan should expect that from him. It's just a bit funny to me that we have popular people like Griselda releasing albums with beats by people like Daringer or Alchemist that Nas would sound incredible over and while this is happening, Nas releases an album with Hit-Boy.

And I'm not saying Daringer or Alchemist would be a "risky" or "experimental" move either, they would probably hand Nas a bunch of dope boom bap adjacent stuff. I'm just saying it would've probably sounded better and with Griselda blowing up and Alchemist probably at his peak right now, it would've definitely had just as much if not more hype. Of course, maybe this would not have solved the occasional problems I have with Nas' rapping on this thing, but you never know how he would've adjusted.

>The middle section of the album ("27 Summers" to "All Bad") is
>the weakest to me. None of those records are bad per se, but
>I'm not dying to hear any of them again.

Definitely agree with you there. "All Bad" is a really weird song to me, because Paak sounds great on drums, but the song as a whole doesn't make me feel much.

There aren't really any songs I'd add to an endless "Best of Nas" playlist here, but I do have to say it was nice to hear AZ on that firm track, they all sound good, but he really sounds great. He is someone who could definitely put out a great album now with the right producer probably.