Nas doesn’t seem the least bit interested in taking time off from his second commercially successful run in Hip Hop — the rap veteran is already back in the kitchen, cooking up new tracks only a month after the release of his latest album.
On Tuesday (August 22), a video of the Queens MC surfaced online showing him in the studio with longtime collaborator Hit-Boy and his father, Big Hit. Ab-Soul and DaBaby were also present at what fans are assuming was a recording session.
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Producer and manager Python P, who has worked closely with Ab-Soul, also shared footage of the gathering and wrote: “Listening to NAS new shit and bruh still 25 out here no cap.. But the producer in me really listening to @hitboy production and shit had me itching to get right in the gym bucko!”
Check out the photos and clips of the All-Star meeting below:
Nas hits the studio with DaBaby, Ab-Soul & Hit-Boy as "creative spurt" continues https://t.co/52WCdDsvQrpic.twitter.com/KnopGuOD2F
— HipHopDX (@HipHopDX) August 23, 2023
New music from the Illmatic rapper might be around the corner as he recently discussed being in his zone once again. In late June, the 49-year-old told Vanity Fair that he’s in a “creative growth spurt” of sorts and still desires to make music that makes people feel something.
“I’m in one of these creative growth spurts,” he said. “It’s something that I’m really excited about, and it surprises me – but I’m not too, too surprised because I was also waiting for the day that I felt like this again, and I knew it would come.”
When asked about his King Disease series with Hit-Boy, and if he plans to continue creating consecutive records, he shared that he really enjoys the “constant flow” of music and that he doesn’t “wanna stop it once it’s flowing the way it’s flowing.”
“It feels very free, and I just wanna see what happens as I stick to it. And I’ve been sticking to it, and it’s been my whole life now,” he explained. “Like, if I’m recording, I don’t do anything else, really. It hasn’t been this way for me for probably 20 years. I think that’s what I think today, maybe tomorrow I think about, well, actually accurately, seven years, or since I’ve been really in the studio, but when it comes in my head now, it’s been that long—20 years.”
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Less than a month after the interview, Escobar and Hit-Boy dropped their fifth joint project, Magic 2, and on the second verse of track “Abracadabra,” Nas explains that he’s already hard at work putting the finishing touches to his next project.
“I’m a magician, you should listen, it’s never the same tricks/ 2020 when we did the first one, five-album run, not a cursed one, it’s a blessed one/ By the time y’all hear this, we be halfway through the next one/ Bless up, all the rappers we lost, I’m hopin’ they rest up,” he raps on the track.
It’s unclear if God’s Son is plotting a third installment in the Magic series, a fourth installment of the Grammy-winning King’s Disease or just going in a completely new direction. But whatever he decides to do, he’s in the midst of an impressive run.
