What do you get on a rainy Sunday afternoon in New York’s Central Park? This past Sunday thousands of people received a free concert by Nas and many surprise guests. Packed beyond expectations, Jadakiss was unable to get in due to the amount of people and Talib Kweli only got in because he jumped a fence, MTV said. Starting at 4:30pm Nas didn’t disappoint the waiting crowd as he performed such hits as “NY State of Mind”, and “It Ain’t Hard To Tell”. Special guest appearances were made by Mobb Deep, Busta Rhymes, and Q-Tip. During a brief security check Nas spoke to the crowd about the upcoming election and a few artists in the hip-hop game.
“I wanna thank every one of y’all for coming out and representing that real street New York sh–,” “Not that fake sh–, not that 50 Cent. You got George Bush and John Kerry, two devils. Neither one of them want to help me and you. Neither one of them want to help me, so why some black rap leaders talk about ‘Go and vote, we need the minority vote. Come on, hip-hop’? That’s bullsh–. None of them n—as is coming to the community.” He also said that George Bush would win because “he’s a gangsta … unless he made enough money to let that punk ass n—a John Kerry come in.” Before Nas ended his show, the crowd chanted out” Ether”, the song that inducted Nas into lyrical beef history. “It’s funny because Nas downplayed his beef with Jay-Z, but the crowd wanted to hear beef so much, they just chanted and chanted and chanted,” Talib Kweli.
Giving the crowd what they wanted, Nas performed two out of the three verses. Q-Tip who can be seen in the new Spike Lee movie “She Hate Me” later this month summed up the evening when he said, “”It’s definitely inspiring to see that hip-hop still has this type of magnetism, that on a rainy day on a Sunday that people will still come out in droves to see one of the best to do it,. It’s inspiring to see that”.
