Artist Nas

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Nas

Nas excels at courting controversy: After 2006’s Hip Hop Is Dead launched a thousand dis tracks, Nas picked a still-burning fight with Bill O’Reilly, then pissed off Jesse Jackson and others by announcing that his next album would be named Nigger. (He eventually backed down.) While such publicity ploys have often overshadowed Nas’ talents, there’s no denying his game-changing debut, 1994’s Illmatic, an album whose fervor is matched by 2008’s Untitled, one of the most politically charged hip-hop albums in a decade.

Updated 06/18/2009