Friday, October 19, 2012

Quentin Tarantino and Nas: If Pulp Fiction is Illmatic, Jackie Brown is It Was Written


Last night I was watching Pulp Fiction. Somehow it always seems to come on at night and it's led to me sharing some cool thoughts before. I got into a brief conversation on Twitter about it and right away, we mentioned how Jackie Brown was criminally underrated.

15 years after its release, it's still a great movie. A great movie about my city and a reminder that Pam Grier is a treasure of beauty/sass. But it's slept on by a lot of folks because the monster came before it. How do you follow up one of the most influential movies of the last 20 years? A movie that was getting high praise the minute it got released.

(Even as a kid, I felt its influence. I remember a video that my summer camp counselors in 1994 shot with random footage of us around the campus and a nearby ice skating rink. The music playing over it? "Jungle Boogie" and "Misirlou". I didn't know why that music was chosen but it hit me a few years ago - that's the music playing in intro of Pulp Fiction.)

Anyway, it had me thinking of somebody else who's an all-time great but sparks a lot of controversy over his music catalog. Nas. No matter what he's done over the last two decades, he's haunted by the brilliance of his debut "Illmatic.

So during that conversation, this came to mind.


Comparing both of their crowning achievements to the underrated gems that came after it. Here we go.

"Pulp Fiction" and "Illmatic" set a new standard the minute they were released. They were written masterpieces. Nas' combination of incredible lyricism, storytelling, and wordplay made him the 2nd coming of Rakim. Pulp Fiction's witty dialogue and non-linear storyline brought it instant acclaim. Both pieces of art forced everyone else to step their game, influenced a generation of peers and followers and set a new standard for writing/MCing.



Illmatic had a superstar cast of producers. Q-Tip, Large Professor, DJ Premier, Pete Rock and LES made this one of the first albums to have the hottest producers team up to create a sound that defined 90's New York hip hop. It also had only one guest verse - AZ, who sparked his own career with his killer verse on "Life's a B***h".

Pulp Fiction's cast? It revitalized John Travolta and made Samuel L. Jackson a Hollywood star after Spike Lee set him up. Uma Thurman became a star after it and Bruce Willis gave one of his best performances. Throw in a brilliant appearance from Harvey Keitel and a Christopher Walken cameo and it was a perfect storm just like Illmatic.

Pulp Fiction became a pop culture phenomenon, Illmatic brought New York hip hop back into the forefront despite being overshadowed 5 months later by another debut from a NY lyrical genius.  Both are still quoted/sampled today. They also cast a long shadow on their followups. Jackie Brown (1997) and It Was Written (1996).



It Was Written saw Nas reach for bigger producers (The Trackmasters) and a bigger audience. Jackie Brown went more low key despite adding Robert DeNiro, bringing back Pam Grier and using Sam Jackson as his lead male. IWW was a bigger success for Nas (#1 on the charts, a Top 40 hit and 3 million sold) while Jackie Brown made $70 million less. Both received backlash.

To me, It Was Written is underrated because Nas' storytelling is absolutely stellar. "Take It In Blood", "I Gave You Power" and "Black Girl Lost" are gems and "If I Ruled The World" still holds up well today. It's a great pop/street record that influenced - for better and worse - where Nas would head the next 5 years but also MC's like Lupe Fiasco.

And I'll defend to anybody who hated that era of Nas or The Trackmaster's simplistic production (like I do) that this might be one of the best remixes of that time. 

Jackie Brown was a blaxploitation homage and it showed that Tarantino could tell a straightforward, character-driven movie that grabbed your attention without being over the top. He could still deliver a great twist and made great use of Pam Grier, Sam Jackson and Robert DeNiro. Robert Forster as Jackie Brown's confidant Max Cherry earned an Oscar nomination for his role.



To this day, I'm still bummed Grier didn't get an Oscar nomination. Also, Tarantino used more of L.A. as his background. He used the scenery to show that he was a true Angeleno, not just somebody filming here (something I explained here). Plus the soundtrack has a lot more soul than Pulp Fiction.

Both It Was Written and Jackie Brown might be disappointments because of what they aren't. For me, they're great because of what they are. Great works that showed the authors growing. They may not be as filling as what came before it but step out of that shadow and you'll see underrated gems that have great replay value.

(Sidenote - You could do this for a lot of albums. Prince's "Around the World" and Michael Jackson's "Bad" come to mind. I just chose Nas because of the mid-90's time frame)

4 comments:

  1. Definitely a good comparisons. I don't remember Jackie Brown as well as I do It Was Written, so I'll address the musical bodies of work:

    Illmatic is a pure album. As one of my friends said, Illmatic is Nas at his best before he got into the industry BS. People also don't realize how "street" and "thugged out" Nas was at the time. I always found it interesting how some of the new artists are considered hardcore and street, while Nas is considered a grandfather. This is odd to me, considering that he still taps into the same topics today that he tapped into during Illmatic.

    It Was Written was Steve Stoute's vision brought in with the help of Trackmasters. I don't know if you saw the articles on Complex about It Was Written and the makings of it (you should definitely check those out), but IWW was a time when Nas went back to hustling and Steve Stoute pulled him back in the studio. It was an interesting situation between the two of them at that time.

    Nevertheless, to piggyback off what you said, IWW was, and is, definitely an underrated album. It may even be more potent than his debut. His story telling and concepts just elevated on that album.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dang I didn't know that Nas was still hustling after Illmatic. I assumed he got mad at the 95 Source Awards and was ready to listen to Steve Stoute no matter what. I'll check those articles at but I'll say It Was Written was one of the first blends of street/pop records after Ready to Die kicked that door open (maybe Naughy By Nature deserves more cred?). He grew as a storyteller on IWW the same way Taratino showed he could succeed at telling a straightforward story with Jackie Brown.

      Thanks fam. I'll check those out.

      Delete
    2. Definitely. Ready To Die did it with 2 singles, everything else was gully...

      Listen to the following. Nas describes how things went down after Illmatic.

      "Rise & Fall" by Nas

      Delete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete