son of 1973
New member
Well for one, they both sound dated (but thats not a bad thing to me). Second, it depends on what you like. Jay's album came after illmatic and production techniques had changed/upgraded a little bit between 93-94 and 96. If you into early 90's gutter boom bap beats, then illmatic aged better because as you said illmatic lyrically is incredible so its not about that. and nas flow on there is timeless, you even hear jay do it sometimes on rd. if you prefer beats and topics that sound closer to how shit today is, then you'll think rd aged better. i listen to illmatic more than rd though, it amazes me more. and rd is a great album jay kills that shit, but there were precedents for that joint (ready to die). no one saw illmatic coming.
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