"Ether" vs. "Takeover"

LAAAAAME

neither of these is as good as 'last real nigga alive' imo

which has the best combo of nas being super-butthurt/contemplative + 90s rap gossip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkH-x7yZagI

im not a huge 9th stan but this rmx was :O
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AT7A9aJHDw

doesnt rlly work with the rapping tho

I came across this old post which I feel is relevant to this thread's latest tangent:

I find the tepid initial responses to "G Thang" interesting, too. As far as I'm concerned, as someone a bit younger, there is no initial response because it's been ubiquitous for as long as I've been actively listening to music. Also, for me the g-funk era is kind of the heyday, as that was the dominant strain when I first started listening to rap. Sure there was the East Coast hardcore contingent, too, but you didn't hear that on the radio here and most of that stuff flew completely over my head when I was 10/11/12 anyways. I never got into Wu-Tang until well after the fact. G-funk wasn't a subgenre of rap to me, it was what rap sounded like, all the other things were the outliers. Of course, I'm sure a lot of this has to do with growing up on the West Coast during the peak of West Coast rap's popularity. Weirdly, or maybe not so weirdly, around 95/96 when I first started listening to the radio/watching MTV a lot, I probably heard more Southern rap than East Coast. I guess in those days it just as present as a few years later at the beginning of the "Dirty South boom" (but certainly not so much as today), but went mostly unacknowledged.

― The Reverend, Sunday, September 9, 2007 7:08 PM Bookmark

heh my experience was pretty much opposite yours Rev - when I first started listening it was illmatic and reasonable doubt, and then some talib kweli/mos def stuff, eminem. in fact, I would wager that I still probably haven't willfully heard a G-funk song.

I never even knew about either of those albums until the Blueprint/Stillmatic era.

The only East Coast rap songs I remember getting played on the radio here in 96 are "If I Ruled the World" (first Nas song I ever heard) and the singles from LL Cool J's Mr. Smith. From 97 on, radio here seemed a lot more friendly to East Coast rap though.

Well like 97-03.

I dunno if I ever actively listened to radio in middle or high school :/ I do remember stuff like puffy, juvenile, master P, busta etc. being popular in high school

I started listening to music and more importantly, paying attention to music in about '99. Inherited copies of The Score, Life After Death, It Was Written, Ill Na Na etc. from my sister as she fucked off around the world. First copy of the Source I bought had Redman on the cover. First copy of HHC I bought had Rah Digga and the Outsidaz on the cover (lol. also reviewed Operation: Doomsday and give it a perfect score and made it sound like something I would spend years looking for). Radio played Jay-Z, Outkast DMX, Eminem, Lil Kim, 'Special Delivery', Mos Def, Method Man etc. Westwood, once upon a time the only way to really hear new hip-hop was more likely to play Hot Boys or Iconz or UGK or Three 6 Mafia something weird* and Southern than something west tbh.

*or so it seemed at the time.

I know a lot of this comes from the fact that post-Pac's death was a pretty big lull in which the west coast tried to run away from Suge's mess but I just come from the exact opposite of where Rev did. And eh, none of that stuff seems to knock as hard or have as much charisma or rapping abillity or write lyrics as well as their East coast counterparts.

apparently the pic of Prodigy from 1988 was actually a pic of him from about 1982. thinking hiphop needs its own version of factcheck.org .

I've been fucked over, left for dead, dissed and forgotten
Luck ran out, they hoped that I'd be gone, stiff and rotten
Y'all just piss on me, shit on me, spit on my grave (uh)
Talk about me, laugh behind my back but in my face

this is just 4 lines of the same shit, and the first two are Seussian

"laugh behind my back but in my face" lol

p sure I said it before but Ether is the most disappointing diss Nas could have come up with, so many weak rhymes (literally, lines that do not rhyme properly) and those homophobic punches are just so beneath Nas

"Gay-Z and Cock-a-Fella Records", take it to the gaydiohead thread you doofus

"Takeover" is an actual fun good song with a memorable beat and hook that I actually listen to for outside of its context as a dis record
I can't imagine listening to "Ether" for pleasure

"laugh behind my back but in my face" lol

?? enjambment cut off there next line is "yall some well wishers, friendly acting, envy hiding snakes"

Nas might have been a good rapper if it had been somebody there to drop a flowerpot on his head every day of his life.

xp. yeah that bit is actually good lol.

terrible revive

nah it sucks dogg

I cut it off at 4 lines to end it where the rhyme comes in, not to suggest that this is where the line actually ended. he just repeats the same whiny shit in this verse.

"sticking to themes' A+

honestly neither of them are very good. I remember when they both came out, and Nas' was clearly superior simply because he brought a bazooka to a knife fight. the arguments in Takeover's favor about Jay's nonchalance & only mentioning Nas in one verse make sense to me now. the homophobic stuff in Ether obviously sinks it. but he definitely "won." I'm glad no one died this time.

Specifically both choruses are sooooo fuckin weak.

"takeover" rocks excuse me

it's better than Ether, but it's too long and the "LAAAAAAME" choir is... lame

"Takeover" is an actual fun good song with a memorable beat and hook that I actually listen to for outside of its context as a dis record
I can't imagine listening to "Ether" for pleasure
otm

still "Takeover"

and yet everybody I know IRL votes Nas, even my best friend.

Genuinely thought this was a Gang of Four vs. Bad Brains thread

xpost- everyone you know irl is wrong lol

lol Boring

i wonder what in-his-prime Jay-Z woulda done (if anything) with all of Nas's "King's Disease albums"

that's a two arthritic diseases every ten year average

Ofc ether gets ethered; the real challops is that takeover is the only good song on the blueprint

lol damn fine challop there as i just had to delete a longass post about how wrong it is

"ether" isn't and never was a good song. it's vicious, sure, but if you remove the homophobia there are maybe four bars left

slowly loading up this ammo
To explode it on a camel

My child, I've watched you grow up to be famous
And now I smile like a proud dad, watching his only son that made it
You seem to be only concerned with dissing women
Were you abused as a child, scared to smile, they called you ugly?
Well life is hard, hug me, don't reject me

Nas has been horrible for 24 years or so. The gross misogyny. The absence of humor. The guy is a cancer on hip hop.