98-01 Era Nas

[ADP]

The narrative on Nas pre-Takeover would have definitely been different if I Am had not been one of the first internet bootlegging casualties. Instead of mid and wack albums he would have been riding the wave of an all-time classic into the 2000's, and Jay-Z and others don't even have ammo to come at him. That original album dropping changes a good 3 years of hip-hop history

wanted to hightlight though that some of the released I Am was recoded after the leaks so its debatable how succesful the heavy introspection tracks would have been received, theyre amazing to the core fans but may have not been commercial enough compared to others at that time

We could have got the greatest double in history of rap without the leaks but at the same time perhaps no Nas is Like that to my knowledge was added afterwards

someone correct me if im not on it...

 

[Easy-E]

he was still killing verses, doing a weird, Scarface/indie movie/tortured soul thing, on verses like Turn Up The Mics, Let My nikkas Live, Livin Thug, Eye For An Eye Freestyle,

We kinda got this on untitled + Hip-Hop Is Dead

 

[Buckeye Fever]

Nas on QB project and 41st side were all nasty and ferocious !

 

[MurderToCassette]

Someone mentioned it but I didn't see it



So GOAT'ed

 

[Big Mark]

All this is amazing info. For me, every now and then someone shares just a small bit of little known info that helps to explain but also furthers the myth. A deep dive needs to be made into this era for sure.

 

[jensyao]

did anyone find out why the acapellas after Nastradamus were all censored?

I Am and Nastradamus acapellas issued by columbia were dirty
Stillmatic and God's Son acapellas were clean...probably because of Ether? and the diss tracks?

they only released 4 full length acapella albums and then stopped outside of single acapellas once in a while...SD didn't have acapellas and def jam didn't do acapella albums much

the stillmatic acapella had the uncut you're da man but it's censored, so the only version of uncut you're da man we have has that sound effect behind those cut lyrics



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also for uncensored Escobar 97, it sounds like some DJ edited in the words because they sound unnaturally seated when you hear it compared to the flow of the other words...there was rumor that someone had the dirty version but idk if it was just edited in as well

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there was a cut verse on To My... from Timbaland's crew, not sure which verse number this would be



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DJ dirty harry probably still has unreleased Nas from that era, given that he did the Living Legends Vol 1, in addition to all the rare Nas acapellas

Nas was also hosting a lot of mixtapes during this time...i can probably make a compilation of just Nas drops outside the ones already uploaded to youtube

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specific to this thread, i think the topics that's yet to be addressed are probably Nas getting his chipped tooth fixed, getting with Kelis but didn't erode his lyricism outside of making a few forced female friendly songs, moving to Georgia and then to LA, severing ties with Steve Stoute because Steve also worked with Jay-Z during their beef as stated on God's Son, Steve Stoute talking Nas out of collaborating with Kool G Rap, AZ, and Premier (because they don't sell well) and achieving the next level of commercial rap to continue the trend of I Am... beats but Nas went the other way, the fallout with Nature, Nature and Cormega teaming together and Jay taking lines from them to diss Nas, whatever jealousies and betrayals Nas had switching crews, putting on Nashawn and Blitz along with QB's finest while doing 10 songs with NORE, falling out with Prodigy after Jay dissed both of them, getting the Bravehearts together, Nas drawing inspiration from movies, Nas in (unreleased) movie roles/cameos, random rappers sounding like Nas at the time, the radio interviews during the Jay-Z beef, the infamous Power 105 rant, and his ill will records imprint....or we can keep posting unreleased Nas

 

[Big Mark]

I had a scan of a sampler from early on in the I Am era, and the sampler listed tracks on the backs with their official names:

People have the names of some of his popular unreleased tracks so wrong.

People say The Curse, but the proper title is Curse
People say Amongst Kings, but the proper title is Among Kings
People also so The Hardest Thing To Do Is Stay Alive but the proper title is Stay Alive
Triple Threat was also on there.

 

[Big Mark]

I also think Gangster Tears is underrated.

 

[Izanami]

Subs

 

[Controversy]

The Making of the Lost Tapes
___________________________

Lenny Nicholson: “Everybody’s Crazy” was originally for Stillmatic. Rockwilder came up with some incredible stuff. It just fit.

Rockwilder: That’s one of my favorite tracks that I’ve ever done. It was one of those fresh joints. Me and Nas was in the studio and as soon as I did it, he jumped on it. He loved the beat. Back then when you had to lay a track to reel you had to use a SMPTE code. I was using an MPC3000 at the time—the MPC3000 is weird. When you play a beat, it has a play/start method where you can start and stop it yourself. I told the engineer I don’t want SMPTE, I wanna start and stop the track myself, so it had that live feel. And also there was no samples on that. That was me playing the track.

Nas: I love that track. That shyt’s hard. I remember writing that song over and over and over for months and months. I couldn’t kill it like I wanted to ’cause the beat was challenging and the beat was hard. I loved the beat so much I was trying to get the perfect words to it. I spent a lot of time on that.

 

[Controversy]

The Making of the Lost Tapes
___________________________

Lenny Nicholson: A lot of times Nas would go in and freestyle what comes to his head. He’ll sit in there and record a song, but it could be off the top, just based off the energy he’s feeling. Then he may say, “Alright, we’ll keep this, we’ll trash that.” He’ll come back out the booth and finish writing.

Nas*: I freestyled [“My Way”] on my birthday in ’99. I’d carried the thoughts around.

Doo Wop: I got “My Way” and the rough version of “Project Windows” [from Nastradamus] in 1999, on the same CD or tape. “My Way” was that joint. It didn’t have a hook on it—it was just the three verses, but I was loving the flow. He was rhyming over the little bells and shyt, the keyboard. His flow was right in pocket. Nas in raw form.

 

[Controversy]

The mixtape that premiered Ether on Thanksgiving weekend 2001...a week and a half before it was released to radio...3.5 weeks before Stillmatic dropped...RIP Kay Slay

 

[Sean7]

I remember seeing hope again when I heard this on a mixtape in the Summer of 01 I believe.

 

[Controversy]

I remember seeing hope again when I heard this on a mixtape in the Summer of 01 I believe.

I knew he was back when I heard him on the Clue tape earlier in the yr

 

[HHID]

I knew he was back when I heard him on the Clue tape earlier in the yr

Damn that's exactly how I felt, remember it very vividly... There was a moment on the track where he sorta started carrying the instrumental with his flow ("I'm saying you rollin with Nastradamus, we flowing to St Thomas..." Etc) at that very moment I knew... Remember getting that same feeling on Stillmatic intro, some part where he starts carrying the beat and just keeps flowing like crazy.