He's carrying on tradition, defined as: 'When it's real, you do it even without a recording contract.' It's an oath of purity amidst poisons- something that seems sanctimonious in a post-Puffy world, but it assured the older gods that they would have a stake in the next generation. His brother Jungle snaps, 'yo, Nas, what the fuck is this bullshit?' Nas tells him to chill. Nas calls his versionВ 'The Genesis', fusing his own story of origin with the culture. The track shifts to ' The Subway Theme' from Wild Style, hip-hop's first creation myth, the 1983 film that exposed the routines of the South Bronx to the rest of the world. A VHS snippet from Wild Style immediately snarls, 'Stop fucking around and be a man!' You hear a cassette tape hissing the verse from teenaged Nasty Nas on Main Source's ' Live at the BBQ,' 1991: ' When I was 12, I went to Hell for snuffing Jesus.' He anointed himself the 'street's disciple.' Everyone blessed him as the Golden Child. Illmatic starts with that rumbling of the train. It's just the attitude out there, it's just life. Everybody's mentality revolves around the projects. He explained the mentality to The Source in April 1994, the same month Illmatic was instantly canonized with a perfect 5-Mic score: 'When I was a kid I just stayed in the projectsвЂ¦ that shit is like a city. The neighbors are the rotting East River and the 'Big Alice' power plant, its smokestacks hacking up black clouds. The pissy elevators only stop on every other floor. Queensbridge Houses, the largest projects in America, brick buildings dun as dead leaves, a six-block maze clotted with 7,000-plus trying to survive. The doors crumple open and the passengers vanish up half-lit stairwells into the Bridge.

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