What is it with Nas these days? Does he realize the plethora of beatsmiths that could be at his disposal? Why does he still choose to work with producers who just can’t keep up with the venomous spew that the world renowned street poet has displayed over and over again. Well after the dynamic retooling of the beat atrocious God’s Son by Little Brother’s 9th Wonder, another yet seldom known producer steps to the plate to rebirth another Nas album. You may of heard his lush stylings from the recently released Saturday Night Agenda, or you may not have. If you did, you noticed the ill stylings of Soul Supreme. If you haven’t please do yourself a favor and drop some ducats on his own spin on Nas’ Stillmatic, the self rightoutous Soulmatic.

Soul Supreme is dope, no doubt, but he put the world on his shoulders like Atlas attempting to improve Nas’ best album since Illmatic and we get a bag of mixed results. God’s Son pales in comparison to Stillmatic from a vocal standpoint but even more a production standpoint. As a result, instead of tearing a musically handicapped album and improving it 10 fold (a la 9th wonder), Soul Supreme puts himself to the task of improving on production from the likes of DJ Premier and Large Professor, thus creating his own difficult mountain to climb.

Soulmatic opens your ears with a dope reprise of the title track off “Stillmatic”. Though the intro from Stillmatic was dope, this would work perfect as a b-side if it was released as a single, where Soul Supreme stamps his signature sound all over the lyricists clever wordplay. Horns and guitars are ablaze on the revamped ether, almost delivering the impact of the original. Where we get our first taste of the magic that Supreme can set forth is on the productional ho-hum that was “Got UR Self A….”, now re-freaked with a clever sped up vocal sample, breathing in it a whole new life. Incredible production like this is just what the doctor ordered. As a listener you almost completely forget this was the single that was beaten over our heads on video and radio, and we can do the unthinkable…. listen to it all over again!!! This is exactly what a remix is supposed to do and what the original should have done. A so-so reworking of “Smokin” follows (the original was so-so as well) as well as a decent construction of “You’re Da Man” but the latter fails to deliver the power that the Large Professor served up the first time around. The same could be said for “2nd Childhood”, but still is very, very dope. But when Soul Supreme attempts to swing with the big dawgs, it’s evident that he’s more or less a rookie with a bright future ahead of him, but not up to the level of marquee big ticket player yet. Soul works wonders with tracks like “Destroy & Rebuild” and “The Flyest”. Both were suffering from blahzay-blah production and put your skip track finger to work. But now you look forward to surrounding your self to the beautiful backdrops of both joints (“The Flyest” hook cannot be saved though). “One Mic” is done in the same vein as the original, creating its own landscape of adrenaline building production, but its really hard to KO the original. A bangin remix remix of “Ether” closes the album out with triumphant horns and violins.

In the end Soulmatic is a success, introducing those of you who don’t know to the soundscapes of the new kid on the rise Soul Supreme. But where God’s Stepson dunked and 9th wonder put his nuts all in the mouth of the original, Soul Supreme has to pull off a graceful fingerroll over the extended arms of the Shaquille O’Neal of Nas’ albums in recent years. Not quite the impact of a thunderous dunk, but still putting two on the board - and points are what matters, right? So Nas, if you’re out there, do yourself and your true fans a favor by enlisting the young prodigies on the rise. Bless us with the album we have been waiting for. Are you listening? I know we are…..