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The block as cosmology
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Illmatic
Origin Work
Illmatic
The block as cosmology
Linked works
5
Mediums
5
Source
curated
Continue the path — choose a medium
5 works · sorted by resonance
All
5
Film
1
Television
1
Literature
1
Music
1
Anime
1
Film
1 work
France · Film
La Haine
Mathieu Kassovitz · 1995
Kassovitz's Paris banlieue is Nas's Queensbridge in black and white — three friends across one day, the camera as much a witness as the lyric. The micro-geography is total.
Television
1 work
United Kingdom · Television
Top Boy
Ronan Bennett · 2011
Bennett writes Hackney's Summerhouse Estate the way Nas writes Queensbridge — every staircase, every shop. Both insist the block is its own jurisdiction.
Literature
1 work
United States · Literature
Push
Sapphire · 1996
Sapphire's Precious narrates Harlem the way Nas narrates the projects — first-person, present-tense, shame and tenderness braided. Both stake voice as evidence.
Music
1 work
Brazil · Music
City of God OST
Antônio Pinto, Ed Côrtes · 2002
The Cidade de Deus score is a samba-funk decryption of one favela's economy — same micro-geography Nas drew, same insistence that one block contains everything.
Anime
1 work
Japan · Anime
Samurai Champloo
Shinichirō Watanabe · 2004
Watanabe scored Edo Japan to hip-hop because the underlying rhythm of street economies is the same. The series is Illmatic's grammar exported to a different century.