July 15, 2008--Nas' latest album, which is untitled, was still in its formative stages when the controversy erupted over it original title, Nigger, and the album shows the impact of that debate.

But just because the N-word is gone doesn't mean that its baggage disappeared; the tracks on the album, "N.I..G.G. E.R (The Slave and the Master)," "Y'all my Ni**as" and the pointed use of the word 'nigga' throughout the CD proves that point.

Whether the furor over the original title served to heighten the hype over Nas and the new music or not, it definitely sharpened Nas' lyrical fangs. Nas sinks his teeth into  the media, this historic political moment, the music industry and the cultural backlash against hip-hop culture. In fact, Nas' new CD perfectly embodies the racial and political ambiguities of the last year in America. The collection features 15 tracks, including several that tap into the inspiration and hope that Barack Obama has stirred in many people—a hope that for black folk is tempered by the difficult realities of race that persist in America.

The cover offers a hint about the tenor of the album with an image of Nas' back superimposed with whip lashes. The image brings to mind the famous 1863 photo of the whip scars etched deep into the flesh of Gordon, a Louisiana runaway. In choosing this inflammatory imagery, Nas suggests that even things that can't be said, can still be real and can be depicted.

The New Yorker's latest "satirical" cover provides an almost too perfect footnote to Nas' visual and vocal meditations on the implications of Obama's potential presidency. On the last track, "BlackPresident," Nas captures the joyful yet cautious hope that many black folk felt about Obama's successful primary run. The song is bolstered by a refrain sampled from "Changes" in which the late Tupac Shakur raps: "Though it seems heaven sent, we ain't ready to see a black president."

"BlackPresident" repeats Obama's 'Yes, we can' campaign motto and begins, aptly, with a snippet of Obama's voice marking his historic success: "They said this day would never come." Nas continues to muse about the costs and rewards of an Obama presidency. Will he, if elected, actually be able to retain his integrity? Will such a historic event improve the lives of poor black people or will it be another case of hope being deferred? "I'm thinking I can trust this brother, but will he keep it way real, every innocent nigga in jail gets out on appeal. When he wins will he really care still?"

Nas continues to call out the ways black folk continued to be treated like niggers (police brutality and racial profiling) with help from such folk as The Game and the legendary Last Poets. Some of his most heated critique, though, is reserved for several key targets: the media, particularly right-wing news outlets; hip-hop's critics and the record industry.

"Sly Fox," exhibits rap music's genius for metaphor in the form of an all-out missive against rap's cable television critics on a certain conservative news network: Only fox that I love was the red one. Only black man that Fox love is in jail or a dead one. This track will remind fans why they first came to appreciate the conscious voice Nas brought to hip-hop with 1994's Illmatic.  Nas even sets his sights on social networking: They own you too/ Myspace pimps hoes and sluts/ Ya'll exploit rap culture, then ya'll flip on us… Fox keeps feedin' us toxins, stop sleepin', start thinkin' outside the box . . .

As a self-proclaimed 'street disciple' and 'God's son', Nas makes it his business to indeed "Testify" (another song on the CD) unapologetically offering his style of politically incorrect speak. Check out the songs, "America" and "Project Roach" (featuring the Last Poets) on the new CD and you know not only that Nas means to drop truth as he sees it in that disturbing, lyrically brutal manner he's mastered but that he still represents the voice of the thinking rap artist. It's a  voice that hip-hop, black rap critics and mainstream America needs to hear—like it or not.

Was Nigger a fit title for this signifying work? It doesn't really matter. Despite the heat, the song leaks and the ever-changing release dates, Nas drops some serious stuff and the N-word is still all up in it—literally and figuratively.

Stephane Dunn is a writer and author of "Baad Bitches & Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films" (August 2008). She is also an assistant professor at Morehouse College.

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