From the outset, as soon as the sounds from track 6, Memory Lane (Sittin’ in da Park) hit your ear, it was like confirmation that this album’s greatness was ongoing. It may’ve been hard to believe your ears and what you were thinking, but the superbness was still coming; Illmatic wasn’t done yet. By this point, there could be very little doubt that this album was as special as they come. This was a landmark; one of those like we’d rarely heard before. The landscape of Hip-Hop was different then. The competition was much more intense in an industry yet nearly as supportive of the music as it would become in later years. Songs and albums that changed the game came around every year or two; but many who were aware of this album may’ve been able to see that this was even different from that. This didn’t sound like it could be surpassed in a year or two. This sounded more like a generational, or maybe even a forever shift in the game.
Memory Lane is one of my favorite tracks on Illmatic, which says a lot. As a teen listening to the album, I’d play it on repeat and oscillate between listening intently to Nas’s lyrics and focusing on the musical canvas DJ Premier lays for his vocals. To me then, (and still at times now) it all sounded so majestic; so pleasantly haunting. Premier is in prime form; the beat is infectious and stays with you long after listening, and Nas is as lyrically dense and proficient as he is in any of his writing. Much like N.Y. State of Mind, another Premier assisted track, this is the level of skill display that separates Nas from his peers and counterparts. He seems to rap without stopping for breath nearly the entire way through each verse while painting his words across the beat. The way he and Premier so seamlessly mesh on Memory Lane seems almost impossible to have been able to predict. For some reason, they come together to sound almost as if they were an accidental artistic phenomenon. I can remember listening as a much younger person and wondering to myself, “can this really be this good?”
Grand Wizard, who’d later be a member of Nas’s group, Bravehearts, talks the track in over the nostalgic and soulful beat. Premier sampled Reuben Wilson’s We’re In Love to perfection. The formula for the beat is somewhat simplistic but put together to sound intricate and complex. The drum patterns seem on a faster tempo than the sample, which gives the sound a rich and layered texture. Premier loops the same sample featuring a soulful chant ended by a riff over and over throughout; but when the hook comes in, he goes into his signature scratches and cuts in the line “now let me take a trip down memory lane,” from an old Juice Crew (Craig G and Biz Markie) song. DJ Premier isn’t just elite because he knows how to lay a great beat, his unparalleled scratching ability and lyric samplings that’re tailored for each track are so well done and so uniquely attributable to his sound that they are a large part of the reason he still sits in the pantheon of all-time great Hip-Hop producers. 
Lyrically Nas’s vocal delivery, tone, and content all match the nostalgic theme and feel masterfully put together by Premier. He somehow makes the complex lyrics flow so smoothly along the beat that it sounds effortless for him, yet his delivery is so precise and deliberate that it’s easy to get pulled into keying in on these factors and not follow the tales and stories he’s telling in all their vividness and depth. It would probably take one years to grasp the depth of the lyrics on Memory Lane line for line or word for word. Once the artistic depth of it can be all taken in, however, Nas’s ability to depict scenes with words isn’t only evident, but also his ability to be relatable as a person and firsthand observer and participant in the life he lives. He’s able to convey his experiences, thoughts, and feelings in a way that makes you relate to him, while utilizing words that can make the listener feel like they’re watching the movie he’s directing and narrating.
In the first verse’s bars, which are some of the best and most intricately and prolifically written and delivered ever, Nas is the consummate ghetto survivor. A silky-smooth story telling street poet, giving you his firsthand account of his experiences in the streets of Queensbridge. Capturing this verse in all its depth would be a tall task, but there are a few lines that resonate too much to ignore in my opinion; even amongst all these great and profound words and lines.
Toward the middle of verse 1, Nas raps, “I reminisce on park jams, my man was shot for his sheep coat/Choco blunts’ll make me see him drop in my weed smoke/It’s real, grew up a trife life, the times of white lines, the high pipes/Murderous night times and knife fights and blight crimes.” It doesn’t get much more poignant than that in Rap, and Nas’s ability to describe and depict imagery while creating imagery for the listener is one of those unique qualities that make him transcendent. As the listener, you’re receiving the highest level of poetic storytelling, delivered from a storyteller who’s credibly centered squarely within the story lines.
Memory Lane is another track on Illmatic that doesn’t fit the commonly used three verse song format of the time. It features only two verses, and in the second verse, Nas continues spitting as prolifically as he did in verse 1. In one particular set of lines, he even evokes themes previously heard on the album.
A few lines into verse 2, he raps, “Check the prognosis – is it real or showbiz?/My window faces shootouts, drug overdoses/Live amongst no roses, only the drama/For real, a nickel-plate is my fate, my medicine is the ganja.” Here, Nas is harkening back straight through to the theme from Life’s A Bitch. In more words, Nas is basically saying in these bars referencing the difficult things he witnesses and the challenges he’s experiencing, life’s a bitch; that’s why I get high, just as AZ soberly and directly noted on track 3.
In the end, Memory Lane is one of those rare tracks that at times can make you bob your head and rock along with the beat, and at others, can leave you still and pensive. It’s part of the beauty of Nas’s work, and it’s a skill he’s been able to deliver through his art in a countless number of compositions throughout his long and legendary, now 34-year career. At times, you may just listen and marvel at the display of artistic ability from a raw and phenomenally talented young Nas and Premier. No matter the effect, on Memory Lane, Nas and Premier most definitely loudly and clearly pronounce, as the Nas and Craig G sample states in the outro, the most dangerous MC at the time was coming out of Queensbridge.
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