On Wednesday morning, around 11 a.m., I drove to the Linda Vista Skatepark to carve bowls and talk to people about music, not realizing that the folks who frequent the park around that time were pool-skating monsters. While I was waiting to use the small pool, I sat and watched roller derby girls doing backflips off the ramp.
I migrated to the medium pool where a shirtless wook was skating across the walls like an atom in a particle accelerator. He zipped around parallel to the horizon, only ever going perpendicular in order to flourish his line with nose grinds.
Finally, I moved to the large pool, ‘the pipe,’ a concrete behemoth straight from the X Games. A father coaching his son dropped in at the tallest part of the pipe, ripped across the opposite wall and up its face to where the top of his helmet was facing the ground, then he slingshotted across the deepest part of the bowl, and kickflipped out, landing on his feet and rolling out.
That’s when I packed up my stuff and moseyed on over to Shockus Park in Ocean Beach, where one man was practicing his kick flip and another was just learning to drop in; much more my speed. After a couple spins around the 5-foot high bowl, I ran into Colm, who caught my attention with the Bjork t-shirt he was wearing.
Colm hails from the Irish skate scene. “The scene when I was there was very tight,” he said. “I grew up in the 90s and there weren’t a lot of people skating so everyone knew each other. The country is really old too, the architecture is old, so there weren’t a lot of places to skate. Not to mention the weather; it’s like everything was against [us].” Colm described how he and his friends would take skate trips, flying to Barcelona and Madrid to find places to skate.
Colm eventually moved to Barcelona where he claims to have met pro-skater Wes Kremer and “the SK8MAFIA guys.” Colm eventually bounced to the Bay Area for work, and after getting a divorce, moved to San Diego. “You know, I was looking for a place to go and a bunch of skaters I knew lived down here, so I thought, ‘why not?’ The weather is perfect, I get to skate all the time, it’s a good time.” While I’m not sure how much of his story was true, he did show me a super clean kick-flip, and more importantly, had an excellent taste in music.
“I listened to a lot of East Coast hip hop growing up,” he said. “If I had to pick an album that reminds me of skating it would have to be ‘It Was Written’ by Nas. The beats and rhythms on that thing are so cool, ‘Illmatic’ is great too, but [It Was Written], just go check it out.” And then, in a puff of smoke, Colm was gone (he rode away through his vape cloud).
Returning to my car, I pulled my CD of “Illmatic” from my glovebox and gave it a spin. “Illmatic” is the 1994 debut album by New York rapper Nas, and if you don’t think you know it, you probably do. The album cover is iconic; it’s hailed as one of the greatest rap albums of all time, and songs like “N.Y. State of Mind” and “Life’s a B***h” still get consistent airplay and media usage. There’s a reason it lives in my car full-time.
So why did Colm recommend “It Was Written” then? Released in 1996, Nas’ sophomore album was a somewhat drastic departure from the raw, underground aesthetic of “Illmatic.” It features a high quality production from Trackmasters (a hip hop production collective from NY), a new mafioso persona from Nas (called Nas Escobar) and boasts a high-profile list of features including Lauryn Hill, Dr. Dre and Mobb Deep.
The record has gone on to be a major influence for rappers all over the hip hop spectrum. Tupac Shakur was reportedly a fan of the record, and Lupe Fiasco has even called it his favorite album ever. Much of the sound can be heard manifesting in Schoolboy Q records, such as “Oxymoron,” or on Freddie Gibbs’ acclaimed mafioso album, “Alfredo.”
Despite selling over a million copies (it’s still Nas’ highest selling record), the critical reaction was polarized upon release, with the naysayers accusing Nas of selling out for more commercial appeal. The production is flamboyant and rich, the mixing is exquisite and the indulgence of the skits and mafioso rap aesthetic were at the cusp of trendiness.
In retrospect though, “It Was Written” has become one of the best of its kind, a genre defining album that shares a throne with the likes of Raekwon’s “Only Built 4 Cuban Linx” and “Ready to Die” by The Notorious B.I.G. In a golden age of rap blessed by lyrically-dense verses and thematically driven narrative albums, “It Was Written” is up there with the best.
In fact, the B.I.G. even plays a role in the development of this album. Watching B.I.G. take the award for Rap Album of the Year at the 1995 Source Awards, beating “Illmatic” (and a score of other great albums), Nas decided he needed a more hands on approach to promoting his next record. Having been distanced and hands-off from the promotion of “Illmatic,” watching everyone else take home awards ignited a new fire in Nas’ heart.
I wonder if he felt like I did, rolling up to Linda Vista Park, surrounded by greatness (the big difference being that Nas had dropped one of the greatest hip hop records of all time, and I took 15 years to learn how to drop in the bowl. We are not the same). It’s no wonder Nas wanted a piece of the pie and that’s how we got “It Was Written.” A mafioso classic that reinvents Nas’ image, and provides a canvas for him to further explore narratively-driven lyricism and street-smart social justice.
Scan the code above to listen to “It Was Written” by Nas.
Steve Anderson 
Nick Hancock