Illmatic

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.

Bennett writes Hackney's Summerhouse Estate the way Nas writes Queensbridge — every staircase, every shop. Both insist the block is its own jurisdiction.

Sapphire's Precious narrates Harlem the way Nas narrates the projects — first-person, present-tense, shame and tenderness braided. Both stake voice as evidence.

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.

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.