Nas and DJ Premier have announced their long-anticipated joint album with the release of the first single “Define My Name.”
Released on the 30th anniversary of Nas’ iconic debut album Illmatic, the song features Premo’s distinct boom bap production and vocal scratches, and is named after a line from one of the pair’s fan-favorite collaborations, 1999’s “Nas Is Like.”
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The lyrics see Nas reflecting on his longevity in Hip Hop as he raps: “At 20, I said I’d better quit by 30/ Then by 30, I thought by 40 rapping is corny/ How wrong was I?/ Never would have thought at 50, new songs by Nas would be hard and live.”
He also namedrops some of his Hip Hop heroes: “It was Rakim, Kool G and Kris/ Few names like Cool James, ‘Face, Cube and Rick/ That was musically sick, successful and unnatural/ I throw they songs in a cyanide capsule.”
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The track ends with some friendly back-and-forth between Nas and Premo, with the former saying: “I got the rhymes, you got the beats… 30 years later we back in the streets, we back in the lab… It’s album time.”
The pair’s album is due for release later this year via Mass Appeal Records, according to a press release.
The collaborative project has been long teased by both Hip Hop legends, with Nas first discussing it in a 2006 interview with Scratch magazine (the cover of which he appeared on alongside DJ Premier).
“We talked about doing an album together and some of the listeners want to rush the shit — I wanna rush it, too — but I just want to pull pieces from all kinds of different people for this next puzzle because a lot of people think shit got easy, that I quit,” he said of his then-forthcoming LP Hip Hop Is Dead.
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More recently, the Queensbridge native strongly indicated that it would still happen on his 2022 track “30”: “Doesn’t matter this is sheer relief, I feel the breeze this is/ Superhero material, rap star status/ Premier album still might happen.”
Nas and Premo’s potent partnership dates back three decades, with the Gang Starr producer famously contributing three tracks to Illmatic: “N.Y. State of Mind,” “Represent” and “Memory Lane (Sittin’ In Da Park).”
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They most recently hooked up in 2022 for “Beat Breaks” from Premier’s Hip Hop 50 Volume 1 project.
Earlier this week, Nas publicly celebrated the 30th anniversary of Illmatic.
Taking to Instagram, the veteran MC saluted the legendary names who helped him craft his landmark debut, which was the first rap album to be produced by an all-star lineup of beatmakers.
“Grainy pictures for grainy times,” he wrote alongside throwback photos of him in the studio with his Illmatic collaborators. “I had a dream I could get my favorite producers to produce on my debut album. I knew exactly what I wanted and how it should be.
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“But I didn’t know anyone except for Paul [Large Professor], so I asked him would he connect me to them all. The cool soul brother that he is helped me line it up.”
He continued: “On April 19th we smashed shit. Even tho the album leaked months before the release date we still are apart of music history. Thank you Large Professor (Paul) and Dj Premier who drove into the projects to pick me up a time or two. Qtip , Pete Rock , and my man from The Bridge DJ LES, and my guy AZ who was just coming up himself.
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“And thank you to everyone involved. Friday is the albums 30th. 2 The Listeners- ONE LOVE.”
