llmatic is the debut studio album by American rapper Nas, released on April 19, 1994, by Columbia Records.
Illmatic contains discerning treatment of its subject matter: gang rivalries, desolation, and the ravages of urban poverty.[18][19] Nas, who was twenty years old when the album was released, focuses on depicting his own experiences, creating highly detailed first-person narratives that deconstruct the troubled life of an inner city teenager. One writer describes the theme of the album as a “[S]tory of a gifted writer born into squalor, trying to claw his way out of the trap. It’s somewhere between The Basketball Diaries and Native Son….”[20] The narratives featured in Illmatic originate from Nas’s own experiences as an adolescent growing up in Queensbridge, as the lyrics allude to the housing projects located in the Long Island City-section of Queens, New York.[21] Nas said in an interview in 2001: “When I made Illmatic I was a little kid in Queensbridge trapped in the ghetto. My soul was trapped in Queensbridge projects.”[22] In a 2012 interview, he explained his inspiration for exploring this subject matter:
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