*The good folks over at The Real Hip-Hop Head take a moment to give you a brief synopsis behind the Nasir fronted treasure.
The Lost Albums: Complete Series
10 Discs - 170 Tracks
Intro: This collection is a Nas' fans DREAM COME TRUE. If you ask Hip-Hop heads, "Who is the greatest rapper of all-time?", Nas is the most common answer you'll get. He dropped Illmatic in 1994, arguably the greatest Hip-Hop album, and has released 9 studio LP's since (if you include the wonderful The Lost Tapes) and 3 more collaboration albums (The Firm, Distant Relatives, QB's Finest).
After nearly 20 years in the game, Nas has also amassed quite a collection of underground material, unreleased tracks, and rare songs from soundtracks and compilations. Most of these songs are the quality we have come to expect from Nas. However, unless they've scoured the internet for rare tracks, many big fans of Mr. Jones have been missing out on a lot of true gems from their favorite rapper. And some of these tracks are nothing short of outstanding.
Creating The Lost Albums
With all that in mind, I created The Lost Albums; theoretical albums, which answer the question -- "What if Nas had made albums with all of these 'lost' tracks?" And at the same time, these dope tracks will be available for the first time all in one place. Since "theoretical albums" is the theme, I've also given a title and proper artwork to each album. Nas has such a tremendous catalog outside of his discography, I was able to compile five volumes (6 discs) and 99 total tracks. You will find all of Nas most rare tracks. And these are DOPE albums, not collections of throwaway tracks.
In the creation process, I tried to make for the best listening experience, and cohesion from track to track; giving the feel of a real album as much as possible. I chose to do this, rather than make an effort to keep tracks from around the same time together; songs from 2008 are mixed in with songs from 1994.
While compiling all of Nas' non-album tracks, I was also inspired to highlight Nas' extensive guest feature work. This turned into a four-disc collection, The Greatest Guest Features, and together with the five volumes of The Lost Albums, this is a very near-complete collection of Nas' non-album discography.
What tracks qualify for The Lost Albums?
Basically, any Nas track that isn't on one of his 13 Studio albums (including collaborations) -- Unreleased tracks meant for earlier albums; bootleg releases; internet leaks; bonus tracks not featured on the original album; songs from soundtracks or compilation projects.
Many hours were spent making sure The Lost Albums contains the highest quality version that exists on the net. Some of the tracks contain tags (DJ drops) or they are not CDQ (CD Quality) rips, but these are the best quality available for those songs. Also, a friend and producer, Ryan Gregory, has leveled out the sound (raising the volume on quieter tracks) and gotten rid of some of the tags and DJ shouts on others. Some of these songs are in better quality than could have been previously found before the release of The Lost Albums.
Enjoy.
*Click the link under the respective project to download.
Via RealHipHopHead
