Nas has opened up in a recent interview about the historic musical run he’s been on with Hit-Boy in the past three years.
During a wide-ranging conversation with Wall Street Journal on Saturday (May 20), the Hip Hop icon said that Hit-Boy would listen to a few of his classic tracks and ask him to re-use some of the flows in his older songs in new material.
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“Sometimes I’d be like, ‘But I did that, I did that already.’ And he’d say, ‘I know you, you’re going to go into a new cadence on it. Can you, please, just do this flow right here? I promise you’,” Nas told WSJ.
When King’s Disease was released in August 2020, Nas took home his first Grammy win for Best Rap Album. The dynamic duo then returned a year later to release King’s Disease II in August 2021 and Magic in December 2021.
Because of the success of all three projects, the Queensbridge rap legend felt immense pressure leading up to the release of King’s Disease III. Nas sparked anticipation for KD3 when he confirmed that the album was on the way on “Ugly,” from his and Hit-Boy’s surprise joint project Magic.
“I’m on offense every day until I see the love / ‘KD3’ on the way, this just to feed the buzz,” he rapped.
“In my head, I said, ‘There’s never going to be a KD3,” Nas confessed. “Why did I say this? I’m tired.'”
Thankfully, the Queens rap vet kept his word.
In terms of his love for Hip Hop, Nas said he still loves all that comes with the now 50-year-old genre of music.
“It’s become my therapist, my friend,” Nas said. “It’s not always the happiest place, sometimes I want to do other things. But I feel compelled to be there. In this day and time, it’s all about the studio.”
When King’s Disease III was released in November 2022, HipHopDX‘s Eric Diep gave the album a 4.1 out of 5, saying, “Nas and Hit-Boy have compared their creative output to Shaq and Penny and Michael and Quincy, paying homage to duos with undeniable success and chemistry.”
He continued: “KD3‘s final two tracks are important reminders of Nas’ ingenuity when it comes to speaking on violence in the Black community. ‘Beef’ takes on the personification of conflict, detailing why ‘beef’ is always taking souls and joins his other perspective tracks like ‘I Gave You Power.’
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“On Don’t Shoot,’ Nas makes a case for finding a way to save lives. He raps, ‘Am I snitching when the police commissioner my friend?/Am I a player when me and the mayor hangin’ and tap in?/Just a grown man tryna see how to change the community/’Cause all I see is mamas crying, reading eulogies.’ He then notes, ‘Imagine no man shot for the next 10 years, no man killed for the next 30 years.’ “
