I've generally thought of Nas as an idiot for a long ass while now, but this is an indisputable front-to-back classic right here. The phrase "changed the game" gets bandied around far too often, but this is one of those cases where it's true. Nas really stepped up the lyrical game for the next generation of hip hop with this outing - a pinnacle not even he could reach again in the decades since. 5/5
Also, on the production tip, I feel like he was one of the first MCs to go out and pull the fire beats from multiple producers for a single project, Pete Rock, DJ Premier, Q-Tip, Large Professor, etc…
Prior to
Illmatic, most acts were produced exclusively by a single producer or production teams; Dr. Dre, The Rza, The Bomb Squad, Prince Paul, Eric B, etc.. the producer was part of the project and while it did tend to unify the sound, I think it cut down on the amount of potential bangers per album. After
Illmatic you had this practice become the norm, it was pretty common for albums to feature some combination of songs produced by the likes of Just Blaze, Kanye, Swizz Beats, Scott Storch, The Neptunes, Timberland, etc… for better or worse it’s was a seismic shift in how hip-hop music was created and likely contributed to hop-hops dominance of the Pop charts in the late 90s and 2000s.