Hip-hop is a fickle, ephemeral beast; a genre filled with trend-hopping “artists”, corporate hucksters and walking gimmicks desperate to achieve their 15 minutes of shine. Look back at the hip-hop charts 20 years ago—hell, look back 10—and see how many names you’re still reading about today. Nas is one of them. And hip-hop has been irrevocably changed. Gifted poet. Confessor. Agitator. Metaphor master. Street’s disciple. Political firebrand. Tongue-twisting genius. With music in his blood courtesy of famed blues musician father Olu Dara, the self-taught trumpeter wrote his first verse at age 7 and, with 1994’s Illmatic, created one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time before he could legally drink. More than two decades on, Nas remains an incendiary, outspoken and brutally candid rapper on the recently released Life Is Good. He cuts his rhymes with midlife realism and daring empathy. It’s the most emotionally raw record he’s made since his first. Nas remains relevant.