Nas - Still Matters

"50 need to realise that the last nigga that went after me retired and he’s on an R&B tour right now. So if anybody really wants to bring it? Think about that." Nas is one of hip hop’s best. A legend. Period. But with a seventh album ready to drop, is the 31-year-old about to retire the rap game or will he remain the Street’s Disciple for many more years to come?Hattie Collins pops to Atlanta to find out.

“Yeah, I’m a legend now, huh? That’s a funny word. A strong word. But it is what it is, so fuck it,” shrugs an atypical low-key, give-a-fuck Nas that we know and kinda love. “I got called it early on in my career so it used to be really hard to deal with. But now I understand why they say it,” he says before pausing. “I’m still a little nervous about words like that cos I don’t know if that’s what describes me best, but I do understand why the title is thrown around in my direction. It’s definitely an honour,” he decides decisively.

It’s a few days after his performance on VH1’s “Hip Hop Honours” awards show and Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones, sporting Pro Keds, Paper jeans and NY Yankee cap, is sitting in the swish surroundings of Atlanta’s Four Seasons hotel, contemplating his own contribution to both the artform and the ceremony. First up was a performance, at Afeni Shakur’s request, of Tupac’s “Keep Ya Head Up” classic. “It felt a little weird, but it was an honour,” he says of paying homage to the hip hop hero. After Kool Herc and co had gotten their props, Nas returned to the stage in a slick suit to perform his brilliant, blues-soaked new single “Bridging The Gap” with his father, Olu Dara, a moment that clearly moved him. “It’s the total greatest experience in my life onstage,” he announces. “And the song itself is my best ever song. It’s more soul, more real life in it that anything I’ve ever done. I felt it was an important record being there’s a lack of strong family structures and being that my dad is a jazz musician. It’s a great father-son record for me to make,” he points out proudly.

What was more touching than seeing Nas play with his pops and bowing in deference to his emcee elders sat beside the stage, was the sight of KRS-1 et al showing their respect back to the 31 year old rhymer. “That’s dope,” he says with a shy laugh. “They the kings of rap, so when they bowed back that’s just the validation. They validate me and that makes me feel good.“

And well they might. Forget Jigga and his ‘one classic album every ten year average,’ snipes, Nas is the owner of six solid studio albums, and with an outstanding seventh on its way, the kid from Queensbridge continues to prove that while he’s not perhaps the most prolific of rhymers, he’s certainly one of hip hop’s most enduing and consistent. Indeed so solidified is his position of Spitter Supreme, Arena magazine recently hailed him as “arguably the greatest rapper of all time.” Praise indeed, hey Nas? “I don’t know, I just try to hang in there. Sometimes I’ll hear people’s shit and think ‘Goddamn, they make me sound like trash,’” he says, momentarily modest. “Then sometimes I feel like ‘I’m tight, no ones fucking with me.’ It works both ways.”

He’s not necessarily right about people not messing with him. In recent months everyone from Snoop to Jim Jones to 50 has taken a pop at Gods Son. He rubs his face before choosing his words carefully. “As far as everything else, I ain’t got no beefs with anyone,” he states. “50 though, he was saying some shit about me since he came out in 2002. His complaint was that I did a song with Jennifer Lopez and I wasn’t supposed to cos he did a song with her. He’s like a kid living in a hip hop fantasy-world,” he sighs sipping on his Sprite. “J.Lo is a friend of mine; if she wants me to do a record, I’m doing a record with her.” Perhaps it was Nas’ alignment with Murder Inc during the Ja Rule rows that upset 50 so? “Nah, he never said that. And if we boys then he knew what I was doing. He knew what was going on,” he says mysteriously. “I don’t ride with Def Jam, but Irv and them nigga’s is Queens nigga’s, so I can fuck with them. I’ve known them since before I’ve known 50. I embraced 50 tighter though, a lot tighter.”

So has Nas spoken to Fiddy about this or will he take it to wax like he did with Jigga? “50 is a little brother to me. He’s a little nigga I had under my wing,” he says. “I’ve seen him go through a lot of shit and it kinda made me worried about him. He says so much reckless stuff, it’s like ‘Damn, this guy is gonna kill himself.’ He has said so much shit about me that I think he has diarrhea of the mouth,” his voice rises slightly. “You got to be real at some point in your life, but it seem he don’t want to bee that. But 50 need to realise - the last nigga that went after me retired and he’s on an R&B tour right now. So if anybody really wants to bring it? Think about that.”

Talking of Hov, Nas is a little more philosophical. While he says he has ‘no regrets” about their beef, he’s able to admit that Jay’s retirement will leave a hole in hip hop. “I think it already has affected it. Hip hop is gonna live, but there’s not too many guys that rap that I really respect. Who else is there?” he wonders aloud. So given this glowing report, might we one day expect the unexpected and see Nas and Jay unite on wax? “Anything’s possible,” he says blithely. “Anything.”

He appears to be a changed man, does Nas. Two years ago the above conversation would have been off-limits, tendered with a grumpy ‘No comment.’ Not only that, but a whole two hours after he first gets comfy on the Four Season’s sofa, he’s still here, answering questions, getting riled about politics (“Bush is in control on a way higher level that us, the sheep, understand”), discussing the future of young black men (“We have this will to survive”) and sharing his thoughts on the state of hip hop (“I think it sucks. Honestly, compared to the ‘90s, I think it’s horrible. If I knew that my job would have been so important now, I would still have books of rhymes”). It doesn’t take much to figure out what has bought about this easier-going emcee. “Kelis is the whole reason, mainly,” he grins. “I’m a lot more organized, more stable. And happier, absolutely.”

The two famously fell in love after meting in a New York nightclub. “She was standing there with these amazing heels, this gorgeous outfit, her hair in a ponytail and bright gold teeth,” he swoons. “I said ‘ ‘I’ve been waiting to make you my wife for a long time.’ I knew right off that I didn’t want her to get away. I knew that she was the one.” Romantic bugger. “I don’t know if she ever had a man in her life, a real man. She’s all woman so she needed a real man.” Possible pop at Pharrell, perchance?

Despite their pick of holidays, any amount of jewellery, plenty of cash, shopping until they drop, it’s from the simple things in life, Nas insists, that the couple get most of their enjoyment. “We’re just homebodies,” he states. “In New York, we love to walk the streets. Some people would think we were crazy but we walk from one end of Manhattan Island to the other end. We walk.” They rarely get recognised, he says, but then they don’t go out of their way to. “I been doing it for years, so I think it’s a lot to do with how you live your life. If you live behind tinted glass and shades all day long of course it’s gonna be like that. If you put on your look for the cameras, people notice you more than when you’re just walking down the street lookin’ for fuckin mangoes and shit from the supermarket.”

He bats off rumours the two married in Egypt with a tantalising “I can’t tell you that; it’s too much information. It could have happened already, nobody knows." But he’s almost caught out later on when talking about the wedding rings Jacob the Jeweller was supposed to have made. “Lorraine Schwartz was always supposed to do the wedding ring. That’s who did it.” The wedding or the engagement ring? “Yeah.“ Which one? “Um, the engagement ring.“ Yeah, cos obviously you haven't got wedding rings, right? “Yeah, yeah, um…” Big laugh.

Anyway wedding or not, Nas’ future is bright. While he insists his music “doesn’t really save hip hop anymore” one listen to the double album “Streets Disciple” named in honour of those first words we first heard him spit on wax (Main Source’s “Live At The Barbeque), might make one beg to differ. Gone are the tales of drugs, guns and girls (well, there are a few sex stories) but generally Nas talks racial profiling, American apathy, selling out, love, fatherhood, politics and a whole lot more. Highlights include the Ludacris collabo “Virgo”, which sees the pair rhyme over a Doug E Fresh beat-box, “UBR”, an ode to Rakim and the stirring “Suicide Bounce.” “It’s a whole story, it talks about my life, my views and where I’m at today,” he says simply.

The cyclical nature of the album – lyrics bought back to life, working with his dad eleven years after he played on “Illmatic” – might suggest Nas is bringing things to an end. Not so, he states. Though this might be his last album for Columbia, “if they don’t do the right thing, it will be”, hip hop will also flow through his veins. “You never rest until you’re dead when it comes to being an emcee. It’s gonna be times when I slow down and do other things but we’re emcee’s till we die. And, you know what else,” he says suddenly before heading off home to the missus. “I’m in a great place right now, a great place.”

Nas’ single “Bridging The Gap” and double album “Streets Disciple” are out now on Columbia Records.

A version of this article appears in Blues & Soul Magazine