Music
The fast-rising West Coast rapper pays tribute to the East Coast hip-hop legend.
The multi-platinum artist’s debut has since been hailed as one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time and it has gone on to influence a new generation of rappers, not least Los Angeles-based rising star, ScHoolboy Q.
Here the Top Dawg Entertainment artist and Black Hippy member – the hip-hop group that also includes long-time collaborators Ab-Soul, Jay Rock and Kendrick Lamar – talks about how Nas influenced his life and work...
“There are a lot of rappers I like, but I don’t really expect to work with them. Nas is one of my favourites... I don’t ever expect to work with him.
“He’s my favourite rapper of all time, but I just don’t see me doing a song with him. I kind of want to keep that fan part of me. I’ve never even met Nas. All this time, never. He’s the king, man.”
“He was 19 when Illmatic dropped. No 19-year-old raps like that. Come on, man, that’s crazy. How you know all that sh*t at 19, anyway? That’s crazy.
“Nas dropped this album at 19 and connected to the people. You get what I’m saying? N***ers is just buzzing and got big names and sh*t, but Nas dropped it and really did it, had a single that was on the radio, had sh*t that everybody was loving and people connected to.”
“One n***er was rapping like ‘One, two, three and to the four’. You know what I’m saying? Like Snoop Dogg is my favourite, like the king of the [West] coast. Nobody’s over Snoop Dogg when it comes to California. But it’s different styles.
“No, Nas was complete at 19. Nobody was rapping like that. Then you heard Jay Z. Then it was just like, wow. That was what, two years later.”