i made illmatic, i was trying to make the perfect album.ing to make you experience my life. i wanted you to look at hip-hop differently. i wanted you to feel that hip-hop was changing and becoming something more real. i gave you what the streets felt like, what it sounded like, tasted like, smelled like, all in that album, and i tried to capture it like no one else could. ♪ >> charlie: is your music poetry? >> i never liked that word. no. >> charlie: why not? it sounds too refined, too -- >> charlie: not raw. right. i consider my music more raw, especially the first record. i was more raw. >> charlie: you said this was your effort at perfection. >> yes, i tried to make it perfect because, at that point, it was my first -- it was my entry into the rap game so the rap game was full of so many hard-hitting groups and artists that if it was anything less than what i felt would be perfect, i would have failed. i would have never gotten into the rap game. today is a lot easier, i think, to get into the rap game. but back then, in $94, it was a lo