It's been almost ten years since Nasir Jones burst on the scene with Illmatic, a definitive portrait of a young hustler that got by on Nas' street-poet musings and warm, groove-heavy production. Since then, Nas has been wandering confused through the hip-hop jungle, morphing from up-and-comer to tricked-out gangsta to a bullshit prophet named Nastradamus. 2001's Stillmatic was supposed to be his comeback, but its muddled intentions more or less confirmed Jay-Z's accusation that Nas "had a spark when [he] started/But now [he's] just garbage."

God's Son represents a welcome return to form for the twenty-nine-year-old. Nas has rediscovered his introspective side at a time when a lot of mainstream hip-hop has been getting drearily dramatic and self-serious. Discounting his penchant for rote hyperbole (he calls himself "the last real nigga alive"), and some pro-forma shout-outs to God and Biggie, Nas is deft with sorrow-tinged details — about everything from drug addiction to the rap game to failed love.

The music — mostly a dark, sparse boom-bap — follows Nas' shrewd, crafty approach. The James Brown sample on "Get Down" is an old-school gesture, but it makes for the album's best track, as Nas' quick-tongued monotone elegantly folds together tales of street violence and his own rise to fame. Elsewhere he and a sampled Tupac trade soul-baring verses with nothing but an acoustic guitar backing them, and on the Eminem-produced "The Cross," Nas indulges his Jesus complex over a thin piano loop.

Nas falters halfway through, drifting off into boring-ass filler, the worst of which is "I Can," a silly stay-in-school ad attached to a Beethoven sample. But even on the worst tracks, Nas' talent is still impossible to deny, and he may yet have another masterpiece in him. Either way, he's hip-hop's Comeback Playa of the Year.

“Tonight's the Night”

The lead cut and title track from this girl group's debut album, "Tonight's the Night" was written by 19-year-old bandmember Shirley Owens, who sings lead, and producer Luther Dixon. The band from Passaic, New Jersey met in high school, first calling themselves the Pequellos. The song's frank thoughts about sexual and emotional surrender was racy for the time, but that didn't stop the Chiffons from cutting a similar version immediately after the original came out. "We were the first female group to write some of our own material," band member Beverly Lee recalls. "We did have some say-so in our writing."