On Friday (December 24), Nas and Hit-Boy dropped their second album of the year, Magic, following their critically acclaimed project King’s Disease 2.
Throughout the 9-song album, the Queens emcee reminds listeners of his GOAT status in hip-hop, calling out emcees to step their bars up on songs like “Meet Joe Black” and “40-16.”
On the track “Wu for the Children,” the 48-year-old rapper shares both his reservations for his past and aspirations for the future as an emcee.
“Listen to The Manhattan’s, Queens to Brooklyn, oh what a feelin’/I shoulda had Grammy’s when Ol’ Dirty said “Wu for the children,” Nas raps.
While reminiscing on his glory years, coming up with artists like JAY-Z and Biggie, Nas also gives a shoutout to the leaders of the new school, giving Drake, J. Cole, and Kendrick Lamar their props for cementing themselves as the greatest rappers of their respective generation.
“Shoulda did that remix verse on ‘Gimme the Loot’ for Biggie/Me, JAY-Z, and Frank White is like Cole, Drizzy, and Kenny,” he continued.
On the recent episode of his Spotify podcast The Bridge: 50 Years of Hip-Hop, Nas revealed his classic song Hip-Hop is Dead was largely directed at New York rappers.
“I didn’t think that certain people would think I’m talking about them,” he began. “Oh nah, I’m talking about mainly New York! Mainly New York. I’m talking to everybody, but I didn’t explain it thoroughly enough.”
It appears that Drake always had aspirations of being mentioned with the greats, like Nas and Jay-Z. Ed Lover recently shared that Drake admitted his goal was to be mentioned with the greats by the end of his career.
“We had a nice conversation for the 40-minute flight, and I asked him, ‘What is your ultimate goal?” Ed Lover said. “When you’re done in your career, and you’re an OG, how do you want to be remembered?’ And he said, ‘I just want to be remembered in the same breath as JAY-Z, Biggie, Nas, Rakim, [Big Daddy] Kane and all of them.”
Stream Magic, home to guest appearances from A$AP Rocky and DJ Premier below.
