Nas is hitting the road with the album that started it all. The rapper will take stages across
North America this fall for a tour that coincides with screenings of his Tribeca Film documentary,
Nas: Time Is Illmatic, it was announced. The tour will kick off on Oct. 2 in Rochester and close
in Oakland on Oct. 19. At each stop, he will perform Illmatic — his ten-track 1994 debut that has
been lauded as one of the most influential and important albums of hip hop — from start to finish.
The slew of performances mirror the post-screening concert that kicked off this year's Tribeca
Film Festival in April, where he was introduced to the stage by Alicia Keys. Nas: Time Is Illmatic
will open theatrically via Tribeca Film beginning in New York on Oct. 1, with a national expansion
to follow, and will be available on demand and iTunes on Oct. 3.
The documentary project began when former VIBE music editor Erik Parker recruited multimedia
producer One9 to shoot clips for the album's tenth anniversary, but the two then stumbled onto
a larger story, as the film includes a characterization of the Queensbridge Housing Projects,
an interview with Nasir Jones' father Olu Dara in Natches, Miss., and an eyewitness account
from Nas' brother, Jabari "Jungle" Jones, of the death his early collaborator, Willy "Ill Will" Graham,
which catapulted him into the Illmatic creative burst.
With grants from The Ford Foundation's Just Films and the Tribeca Film Institute's Tribeca All
Access Program, the two finished the project in time for Illmatic's twenty-year milestone and
anniversary release, Illmatic XX. Nas himself got involved with the film well into the process,
but told THR at its premiere, "I'm happy I did it. I love those guys; they opened up my world and
I'm forever grateful." "When we started this project, Erik Parker and I couldn’t imagine that audiences
would one day be able to experience the film with a live performance of Illmatic, the album that
started it all," said director One9 in a statement. See below for Nas' tour dates:
Oct. 2nd Rochester, NY Main Street Armony*
Oct. 3rd Albany, NY Palace Theatre
Oct. 4th Washington D.C. Lincoln Theatre (Matinee)
Oct. 5th Glenside, PA Keswick Theatre
Oct. 8th Toronto, ON Queen Elizabeth Theatre
Oct. 9th Detroit, MI The Fillmore Detroit
Oct. 10th Hammond, IN Horseshoe
Oct. 11th Lincoln, NE Bourbon Theatre*
Oct. 12th Denver, CO Paramount Theatre
Oct. 15th Seattle, WA Moore Theatre
Oct. 16th Vancouver, BC Vogue Theatre
Oct. 17th Las Vegas, NV The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas*
Oct. 18th Los Angeles, CA Orpheum Theatre
Oct. 19th Oakland, CA Fox Theater
*Will not be screening Nas: Time is Illmatic
Source: THR