Nas has always sounded older than his years, but there are moments on his eighth album when he sounds like the lead in the hood version of Grumpy Old Men. On "Carry On Tradition," he chastises whippersnapper MCs for disrespecting their elders: "I got an exam, let's see if y'all pass it/Let's see who could quote a Daddy Kane line the fastest." On the next song, "Where Are They Now," he laments the plight of scores of forgotten MCs, from Special Ed to the Fu-Shnickens (c'mon — who gets nostalgic for the Fu-Shnickens?). Then he presents the manifesto "Hip Hop Is Dead," which calls out modern-day hip-hop as a commercialized shadow of its former greatness and attacks empty-headed MCs with dense, colorful couplets: "Word to the wise with villain state of minds/Grindin', hittin' Brazilian dimes from behind."

The single has sparked indignation from next-gen MCs like Young Jeezy. But few observers have mentioned the next track, "Who Killed It?," a narrative rhymed in the dialect of a Fifties film-noir gumshoe trying to solve the mystery of hip-hop's death. In this telling, hip-hop is a "skirt" who's been around since "slaves said rhymes" and falls in love with DJ Kool Herc in the Bronx in the early Seventies. Nas never solves the crime, but his point is implicit — few MCs are taking the artistic chances he does. Still, he ends on an optimistic note: As hip-hop is dying, with a sack of money on her back, her last words are "If you really love me, I'll come back alive."

“All Along the Watchtower”

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."