Fashawn - Ode To Illmatic

Honorary member of this year’s XXL Freshmen class Fashawn teamed up with the famed Hip Hop magazine and Orisue Clothing to pay tribute to one of the most influential albums in the last two decades.

It ain’t hard to tell, the day has finally arrived! XXL and Orisue clothing are proud to present Fashawn’s Ode to Illmatic mixtape for free download.

The disc, hosted by DJ Green Lantern, features the 2010 Freshman paying homage to Nas’ classic 1994 debut LP, Illmatic, by putting his spin on the album’s 10 instrumentals. With only one feature, from Brooklyn lyricist Talib Kweli, the Fresno MC is on a mission to showcase his pen game, and address the critics who compared the 21-year old artist to God’s Son.

“What I wanted to do with this was pay homage to the God, Nas Escobar, one of the greatest MCs of my generation, of our generation, and I want to pay homage to this album, Fash prefaces on the tape intro, Genesis just didn’t wanna bite it and rip it like it’s mine, I wanna pay homage, ’cause Illmatic was one of them kinda albums that really impacted my life in a big way so hopefully this does the same for you.” -XXL Staff

Enjoy.