A diss track Nas recorded 25 years ago called “Real N-ggas” has surfaced online. His target? The late Hip Hop legend Tupac Shakur who beefed with the Illmatic mastermind prior to his September 1996 death.
About midway through the verse, he spits, “From tube-socks in Timbs to blue rocks and Benz/Who got the ends, the type of n-gga 2Pac pretends/To all n-ggas who shine, guess who got revenge.”
The track is preceded by a sample of Nas’ opening bars from 1996’s “The Message,” the track that initially sparked their discourse.
2Pac took shots at Nas on the Makaveli cut “Against All Odds” with lines such as, “This little n-gga named Nas think he live like me/Talkin’ ’bout he left the hospital, took five like me/You live in fantasies, n-gga, I reject your deposit.”
He later accused Nas of adopting his entire persona with, “Hey Nas, your whole damn style is bitten/You heard my melody, read about my life in the papers/All my run-in with authorities, felonious capers/Now you want to live my life, so what’s a ‘chazzer’ Nas?”
As previously mentioned, the tension between Nas and 2Pac erupted following the release of “‘The Message” from Nas’ 1996 album It Was Written in which he raps, “I got stitched up, it went through, left the hospital that same night, what,” a reference to the infamous 1994 Quad Studio shooting in which 2Pac was shot. Nas later clarified it wasn’t intended to be a to diss and the two ultimately made amends.
Nas addressed their beef last August while doing promo for his Grammy Award-winning album King’s Disease. While speaking to Beats 1 host Ebro Darden, he talked about the moment they ran into each other backstage at the 1996 MTV Vide Music Awards.
“I’m walking backstage and I see him and I’m like, ‘Yo, alright, do your thing’ and he said, ‘And you do yours’ because he knew where I was coming from wasn’t an all love place ’cause there was a rumor of Makaveli coming out,” he explained. “So I was really wanting to check the temperature with him but it turned up, my brother and them, they seen ’em and the Outlawz — shout out to the Outlawz — and they had some words or whatever.”
How Nas & JAY-Z's Longstanding Beef Was Permanently Squashed At A Private Def Jam Retreat
He added, “We had a great convo, man. He explained he thought I was dissing him on the song ‘The Message.’ He thought I was dissing him and I heard he was dissing me at clubs. [Pac was the] last person I was even thinking about when I wrote that record. I was just going at everybody. So, he thought that.
“He was like, ‘Yo Nas, we brothers, man. We not supposed to go through this’ and I was like, ‘That’s what I’m saying.’ We had a plan to squash it in Vegas, so I was out there when he was in the hospital and praying for him to come through. Rest in peace to ‘Pac.”
Cooler heads always survive, been that way forever and will continue to be. Being real aint worth dying for.
We all have Jay Z and his snake team for releasing this record.
I knew there would be some dirt thrown his way after Scarface dropped that bomb on drink champs
Jay z is a disgrace to his family, hiphop and even his race.
What did scatface say?
Lol nas said the fake thug line was about biggie. Pac had the whole east coast shook to the point where they used sneak disses like cowards.
Pac had no one shook. What you would call sneak dissing was just the creative way lyricists use to write. The listeners were suppose to be intelligent enough to figure out the lyrics.
Explain this. Biggie smalls was talking about living a mafia lifestyle. Then pac said I fucked your wife and he did absolutely nothing. Thats the very definition of shook. Even your average person will fight to defend their family.
Good point. But what was he suppose to do? Bang Pacs imaginary wife? Listen back then LA was a lucrative market for record sales. This wasn’t always the case the other way around. West coast rappers didnt need NY sales because they were strong in so many other places sales wise. So for bad boy they played their hand carefully because they had much more to lose. The other problem of course was the gang culture around deathrow records. That was countered simply by hiring rival gangs. Pac was many things. A poet. A dancer. Passionate rapper. Good actor. Outspoken revolutionary voice. Damn I miss him. But for a guy who was hanging around NY in the years that preceded deathrow, his behavior confused a lot of east coast guys who knew him. Hung around him. I don’t think anyone was scared of him. Now if you tell me that some of them were scared of Suge then you might be on to something. But even with Suge they were scared of that gang culture that he easily employed with deathrow dollars!
So a few things.
1. He wasn’t beefing with everybody from the East. He was close to Treach, cool with Wu Tang, Bootcamp Clik and Eric B.
2. With the Faith Evans situation, even a normal guy (not even a street guy like a drug dealer) will defend his wife’s reputation. Big on the other hand said if Faye have twins she’ll have tupacs”. That’s pathetic and subservient.
3. His anger stemmed from getting shot in NYC and then hearing Who Shot Ya. Think about this Pac was Bigs mentor, Big wanted Pac to be his manager. Then to go no hospital or prison visit and hear Who Shot Ya…you really wonder.
4. Understand that they were more afraid of Suge but if that’s the case, stop the subliminal disses. Otherwise its just cowardice.
For sure all his anger stemmed from being shot in NY. He felt betrayed. On bad boys side they always maintained that they warned him about some of those Brooklyn cats he was keeping company with.
I’ll agree with you that the faye line was kinda weak…..who shot ya was huge though. It was definitely playing with fire. Sad to see how today the gangsters and wannabe gangsters have taken control of the game and so many of them toe the line of potentially losing their life. The lessons of 25 yrs ago haven’t been learned.
I actually never heard this verse… Shit was well hidden
fuck both em
Youre right. I’d much rather listen to lil baby.
Clown ! Lil baby is trash compared to these legends
I was being sarcastic lol. Glad we agree!
Daaaaamn. Need a cleaned up version of this for the archives. Nas was the bigger man for not releasing this back when Pac was recklessly going at everybody. Cooler heads prevail for sure.
Bigger man? More like this was a weak jab and he was scared….either way 2pac dead now. All his rivals now winning. Jay Z, Puff, Nas.
Jayz and Puff are phony has hell. Pacs been gone for 25 years and he’s way more relevant than those two clowns. Nas is amazing but he said the line “fake thug no love” was for big and then this was leaked. Thats weak…if you diss a man, own it.
Nas is way better lyrically than Pac ever was lmao
Good thing this didn’t come out back then. It’s not good. But whoever leaked this is wack for it. It’s well known they squashed their beef and ended on a good note.
It’s not wack. It’s just a part of history. Fit it back into the puzzle piece for the era that it was meant for. It’s nice to hear what Nas had to say. Especially putting ‘pac’s name on wax. I can’t think of anyone else that did that.
Nas calling out Pacs realness is laughable, the mans shot 2 off duty cops defending another balck man, gets no realer than that, and whether pac knew they were off duty police or not he still reacted in a REAL manner.
therefor anybody who talked about pac and hes realness or gangsta image is talking out of pocket.
Nas Ill tho, too bad pac died, these 2 couldve made some special tracks together
It was never meant to come out, and it’s in poor taste since Pac died. The most important thing is that the song also sucks, so what’s the point?
Thats not ether bars, thats bunch of bs bars.
Had this come out back then Nas career would be buried. And I like Nas but this aint shhhhht.
Nas and Pac had a good rivalry in 1996 Nas dropped his first commercial success It Was Written then Pac drops All Eyes on Me. Most people don’t know it but Nas was more of a threat to Tupac back then. Biggie was more popular back then but Nas was just getting started. Once people started appreciating Illmatic, Nas only got better
Except it was the other way around, all eyez on me came out first and Nas sneaked dissed Pac and stole the all eyez on me beat for “Street Dreams”
Good call I thought it was weird Nas sampled Pac when I first heard. But yeah nobody was going to beat Pac in a diss track or beef. It’s like today’s rappers of they tried to diss Eminem…Pac, Nas, Eminem are 3 rappers that you can’t beat in a beef they are just too smart.
The beat wasn’t anything special on either track. It’s a Linda Clifford song almost verbatim. I mean it’s not like the Trackmasters were innovative samplers. They would just replay an old instrumental and add some drums to it. Nas had said some slick shit that a paranoid dude like Pac rightfully maybe thought was aimed at him, but they personally squashed the beef right before he got killed.
Thanks 4 not posting my shit ya wack pussy ass wanna be journalist!!! LMAO I know I educated u more than the 24 year old sitting on ur dick
damn! that was disappointing!
Good thing he didn’t drop it, 2pac would’ve destroyed him completely after that weak attempt. I expect better from Nas.
21 gun salute Mr Makaveli….The realest .
Cool piece of history. In my opinion Nas was by far the better mc.
Yap
i don’t know whether to call it the 90s hiphop or the Pac era what a time in hiphop everywhere i went they be bumpin Pac man hands down Nas is good but Pac on another level he would turn a battle rap song to a hit he would be dissin you and at the same time you be dancin to that tune. After his death these other peeps started shining they could finally eat, coz when he was alive all these other guys were by the ways type of shit.