NAS – “Made You Look”
One of Nas’ most famous tracks finds him rapping from a gun’s point of view; here that idea gets turned into music. A shot is fired – and the beat is a bullet trail, slowed down John Woo style until we can see the air surge and buckle around it, mapping the wobble of the bass, the skid of a spun-back turntable. Nas is an action hero: his lines here aren’t much but when he says them he sounds so tough and at the end when the beat drops out and he keeps rhyming you realise he does his own stunts too.