Born Nasir Jones, Nas released his debut album in 1994 under Columbia Records. He titles
his album “Illmatic.” Illmatic, with an intro and only nine other tracks and a running time of less than forty minutes, is arguably the greatest hip-hop album ever to be released. Nas released his sophomore set, “It Was Written” in 1996 to mixed reviews. The album had one of the most successful hits in the late 90’s - “If I Ruled the World,” a continuation to “The World Is Yours.” Nas fell victim to bootlegging as his third album “I Am…” was
heavily bootlegged in the streets of New York. In what was supposed to be a double cd lp, Nas’ label, Columbia had no choice but to change the album to a single cd release and change the album, axing a lot of the work and taking those songs to the vaults.
It was 1999, and Nas released his second album in that same year titled “Nastradmus”—a thematical album about the future of music and the world as the new millennium drew near.
Nearly three years had passed and Jay-Z, at a summer concert through a verbal dart at Nas as he rapped “ask Nas, he don’t want it with Hov…” a sneak preview to a diss towards Prodigy from Mobb Deep and Nas. While most wrote of Nas, he went to the studio and recorded his
fifth album, aptly titled “Stillmatic.” The album was highly anticipated as Nas answered back with the venomous “Ether.” Nas regained his crown. Nas has released two more albums since then, “The Lost Tapes” (a collection of previously unreleased songs that also
received critical acclaim) and “God’s Son”.
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