Is it fair to say that Nas is a better writer than Jay-z but Jay-z is a better rapper than Nas?

[Budda]

I never liked Heaven. The flow he used on that always sounded unnatural to me, for him. And lyrically, I didn't think it was deep. God's Son was full of songs that just felt like he as trying to be the anti-Jay. LOL!! His best sh*t has always been songs that sound natural for him to make. His new sh*t sounds like Nas. On that album, you could tell he enjoyed recording "Made You Look". That sounds like Nas. The real Nas.

And that's my guy, but he spent 3-4 albums trying to push himself into territories that don’t really work for him. When he just sticks to his strengths, like what he's been doing since 2020, then he wins. Because that's his lane. All that other sh*t just made him sound like he was reaching for a sound that never really hit for him.

I don’t think Jay would want to make those kinds of records though. And he shouldn't. Those are Nas records. Same as Nas can't make a Big Pimpin' or PSA, or 99 Problems, or Where I'm From, or Can't Knock The Hustle, or Politics As Usual, or Dead Presidents. These are tracks that can only be made by the people that actually made them. That's why they're classics.

What 3-4 albums are those?

And what songs on Gods son didn’t fit Nas? You sounding a bit like Irv Gotti my breh

Gods son sounded like it did because he made it while his mother was dying that’s why you get songs like Dance and Heaven which for me were classics.

 

[Awesome Wells]

There’s shyt that Nas says that people felt like was false until they fact check it as well. Nas can be very deep and he’s poetic. As far as the Nas vs Jay simplicity thing. Neither one are simple. And Jay def doesn’t always sound good simple. He tried that with the Ha Remix verse. He tried that with Magna Carta. We all see how that turned out. It’s his least quotable album cause he dumbed it down. Another thing. Jay doesn’t have photographic memory. What he does was exercise. I’ve actually done it with some of my verses. Write it in ur head. That shyt is something that takes practice. And most people with a decent memory can do it. Jay’s most lyrical shyt is the shyt he’s admitted to writing down. Majority of that ended up on RD. Nas’ memory was at his worst when he was a heavy smoker. And he was a heavy drinker too. Nas also didn’t like to listen to his own music over and over again. Jay on the flip side doesn’t smoke at all. And barely drinks. Jay likes being sharp and aware. Nas preferred being high and out of the way. Neither one is great when they try to dumb it all the way down. Both can be great when they dumb it down a little bit. Jays flow saves him in spots where his lyrics aren’t trying to be the most crazy. Jay kinda started off with a triplet and playful flow. Alotta people like that can flow their ass off when they slow it down. See Twista. See Busta. See Krayzie Bone. The rapper with the most natural flow is Biggie imo. As u said tho. Both Nas and Jay have their strengths and weaknesses. Both are pretty much good at everything so even where they are weak at it’s better than alotta nikkas. That’s why they are GOATS.

On some real sh*t, once Nas had trouble with Sony in '99 and didn't want to pay big bread for tracks, he wasn't the same again for a minute. I think that's why Jay went at him. He thought he was an easy target and fell off. Because there was a point when Nas was the best, and no one would even think about going at dude. After the I Am nonsense with the bootleg situation, when they made him run back to the studio to rush and record mad new songs, he lost a step. And I think, inspiration too.

Same sh*t happened to Jay when he "retired'. Dude spent like three years out the studio and came back sounding rusty AF. He had to redeem himself with AG because that Kingdom Come sh*t was a joke. But when you get away from the element that you were used to when you made your best sh*t, it's hard to recapture that magic. It took Nas mad albums to get back the real Nas. Dude was sleepwalking for mad albums. Any real Nas can be honest about that. He was putting out some bullsh*t for a minute. LOL!! Which is why it's so dope to finally see him back to true form again.

 

[Awesome Wells]

What 3-4 albums are those?

And what songs on Gods son didn’t fit Nas? You sounding a bit like Irv Gotti my breh

LOL!! Damn. Don't do me like that with the Irv thing.

Nas was hit or miss from God's Son to Untitled. And that's just me trying to be objective, as a fan. Those albums as a whole are not up to Nas standards. He's much better than that. They literally did nothing for my dude's legacy. After that, he started sounding like Nas again.

 

[spliz]

On some real sh*t, once Nas had trouble with Sony in '99 and didn't want to pay big bread for tracks, he wasn't the same again for a minute. I think that's why Jay went at him. He thought he was an easy target and fell off. Because there was a point when Nas was the best, and no one would even think about going at dude. After the I Am nonsense with the bootleg situation, when they made him run back to the studio to rush and record mad new songs, he lost a step. And I think, inspiration too.

Same sh*t happened to Jay when he "retired'. Dude spent like three years out the studio and came back sounding rusty AF. He had to redeem himself with AG because that Kingdom Come sh*t was a joke. But when you get away from the element that you were used to when you made your best sh*t, it's hard to recapture that magic. It took Nas mad albums to get back the real Nas. Dude was sleepwalking for mad albums. Any real Nas can be honest about that. He was putting out some bullsh*t for a minute. LOL!! Which is why it's so dope to finally see him back to true form again.

Nas' I Am work was what created The Lost Tapes. One of the best albums in his career. Imo. Nas got more poetic around the I Am era. U write some of them verses down and it's pure poetry. I listed one in this very thread. U had a step back with Nastradamus from rushing it but even on that u get shyt like Life We Chose and Last Words. The Next album over was Stillmatic and there's literally no criticism anyone can give about his rapping on that. The nikka wrote a song backwards on that shyt. He was spitting on God's Son. shyt he was spittin on SD. Even his unreleased shyt from that album go crazy lyrically. The thing with Nas is people don't like where he conceptually went after God's Son. He was experimenting with album concepts and was a polarizing time for him. As far as Heaven that song is elite. My father loved that shyt since he first heard it and ironically that's one of the joints why my father prefers Nas over Jay. And my pops is 60. Lol

 

[Budda]

LOL!! Damn. Don't do me like that with the Irv thing.

Nas was hit or miss from God's Son to Untitled. And that's just me trying to be objective, as a fan. Those albums as a whole are not up to Nas standards. He's much better than that. They literally did nothing for my dude's legacy. After that, he started sounding like Nas again.

I think Gods son is one of his best albums personally it had Made You Look, Get Down, Book of Rhymes, Last Reall nikka Alive, Mastermind, Revolutionary Warfare, Thugz Mansion and I Can which is his biggest and maybe most impactful song.

Untitled I like too, Nas being political and pro black is as much who he is as him delving into RnB collabs, his a NY former 5 percenter rapper who’s the son of a blues player with a Muslim and African name, him being pro black him having a love for other forms of black music is his identity, I think people try to put Nas in a more narrow box than any other mainstream rap superstar which is unfair to him and cost him on making a lot of moves he could have.

Jay try do the same with is it Oochie Wally or One Mic? Like a conscious nikka can’t like hoes, I mean when has Nas never not spoke about women lol?

Looking back on it I’m glad he done You Owe Me, glad he done Oochie Wally or Thank God I Found you with Mariah and Joe these are some of the same tracks which add to his catalog, but Jay fans will turn around in the same breath saying is it Oochie Wally or One Mic but then turn around and knock him for not having more commercially appealing tracks.

 

[Pop123]

There’s shyt that Nas says that people felt like was false until they fact check it as well. Nas can be very deep and he’s poetic. As far as the Nas vs Jay simplicity thing. Neither one are simple. And Jay def doesn’t always sound good simple. He tried that with the Ha Remix verse. He tried that with Magna Carta. We all see how that turned out. It’s his least quotable album cause he dumbed it down.

Magna Carta is unlistenable to me, lol, but it’s not because he was dumbing down necessarily…it’s the bad music, like the music just sounds trash. Just a bad album, wack ass records…but he’s not really rhyming simple like that on there imo. My favorite joint on there besides the Ross joint is the joint with Nas ironically. Joints like “Give it to me” and “Money Cash Hoes”, “Can I Get A”, “Jigga my nikka” he is dumbing down but the ish is still fire and doesn’t sound basic and bad…he mastered that ish. Nas on Oochie Wally and You Owe Me, etc… just sounds like Nas trying to dumb down lol. Lupe is good at that too, simplifying the lyrics without sounding out of place…”bytch Bad” for example, subject matter is still Lupe but one of his most “simple” performances lyrically

 

[Awesome Wells]

I think Gods son is one of his best albums personally it had Made You Look, Get Down, Book of Rhymes, Last Reall nikka Alive, Mastermind, Revolutionary Warfare, Thugz Mansion and I Can which is his biggest and maybe most impactful song.

Untitled I like too, Nas being political and pro black is as much who he is as him delving into RnB collabs, his a NY former 5 percenter rapper who’s the son of a blues player with a Muslim and African name, him being pro black him having a love for other forms of black music is his identity, I think people try to put Nas in a more narrow box than any other mainstream rap superstar which is unfair to him and cost him on making a lot of moves he could have.

Jay try do the same with is it Oochie Wally or One Mic? Like a conscious nikka can’t like hoes, I mean when has Nas never not spoke about women lol?

Looking back on it I’m glad he done You Owe Me, glad he done Oochie Wally or Thank God I Found you with Mariah and Joe these are some of the same tracks which add to his catalog, but Jay fans will turn around in the same breath saying is it Oochie Wally or One Mic but then turn around and knock him for not having more commercially appealing tracks.

I was lucky enough to be in the room for sh*t like “Triple Threat” and “Gotta Love It”, back in the day, when they were recorded. Dude recorded like 70+ tracks from ’97-’98. During that stretch he was making much better sh*t than the tracks that actually ended up on the albums because his music was being bootlegged so heavily in NYC, at the time.

A lot of sh*t that was done around that time ended up on Lost Tapes. But his drive and pen was unmatched back then. That’s why I always say that was his peak era. Because it was hard as f*ck to find a Nas song that wasn’t dope at the time. He couldn’t lose. After ’99, it was rough with dude’s catalogue. For mad albums.

I love Made You Look and Get Down. A lot of the other joints on the album just didn't live up to Nas standards, for me. I was just used to a higher level of quality from him. So I had trouble getting through a lot of those tracks, away from the few that I liked.

Truthfully speaking, One Mic is the perfect Nas song. I wouldn't want anyone else to make that. If Jay tried that, it would sound weird. That's not his lane at all. He shouldn't be doing any One Mic's. LOL!! As far as Nas's women tracks, I've said forever that I don’t ever want him to make any more tracks for the ladies. That's not what he's good at. Haha!

My guy produced Oochie Wally, so I'll always love the beat. I think it would've worked better if that was a Nas solo track though, lol. He could've pulled that off back then. We didn't need Horse, Wiz and Jungle on that.

 

[spliz]

Magna Carta is unlistenable to me, lol, but it’s not because he was dumbing down necessarily…it’s the bad music, like the music just sounds trash. Just a bad album, wack ass records…but he’s not really rhyming simple like that on there imo. My favorite joint on there besides the Ross joint is the joint with Nas ironically. Joints like “Give it to me” and “Money Cash Hoes”, “Can I Get A”, “Jigga my nikka” he is dumbing down but the ish is still fire and doesn’t sound basic and bad…he mastered that ish. Nas on Oochie Wally and You Owe Me, etc… just sounds like Nas trying to dumb down lol.

Nas on You Owe Me ain't really dumbed down. It's just Nas. Lol. So I don't get that one. Nas on Oochie Wally I get but he literally just tacked his verse on. That wasn't his song. He's not even on the album version of the song. The Ross song on Jay's album wasn't Jay's song. It was a Ross song. nikkas fukk with that song more cause of Ross and the beat. If that song only had Jay it would be borderline wack. Jay's least lyrical album was Magna Carta. And that's his worst album. It's not a mystery. Lol. Jay usually is great at saying alot with a little. On that album the nikka wasn't saying nothing. Even on BP3. Jay got shyt like Thank You. He dont got no songs u can say he lyrically bodied on Magna Carta. In any capacity. nikka wasn't saying shyt on that album. Lol

 

[BigTyme Records]

Jay is just better period

 

[Pop123]

I don’t know why they pulled back from this, they fake threw it out there, I remember it being on radio, but then it seemed like they decided not to go with it or sumn. He was spittin and this shyt jam…and it’s true to him, some hip hop ish.

 

[Budda]

I was lucky enough to be in the room for shyt like “Triple Threat” and “Gotta Love It”, back in the day, when they were recorded. Dude recorded like 70+ tracks from ’97-’98. During that stretch he was making much better sh*t than the tracks that actually ended up on the albums because his music was being bootlegged so heavily in NYC, at the time.


A lot of sh*t that was done around that time ended up on Lost Tapes. But his drive and pen was unmatched back then. That’s why I always say that was his peak era. Because it was hard as f*ck to find a Nas song that wasn’t dope at the time. He couldn’t lose. After ’99, it was rough with dude’s catalogue. For mad albums.

I love Made You Look and Get Down. A lot of the other joints on the album just didn't live up to Nas standards, for me. I was just used to a higher level of quality from him. So I had trouble getting through a lot of those tracks, away from the few that I liked.

Truthfully speaking, One Mic is the perfect Nas song. I wouldn't want anyone else to make that. If Jay tried that, it would sound weird. That's not his lane at all. He shouldn't be doing any One. Mic's. LOL!! As far as Nas's women tracks, I've said forever that I don’t ever want him to make any more tracks for the ladies. That's not what he's good at. Haha!

My guy produced Oochie Wally, so I'll always love the beat. I think it would've worked better if that was a Nas solo track though, lol. He could've pulled that off back then. We didn't need Horse, Wiz and Jungle on that.

This is his lane it would make no sense for him not to make these type of songs when he goes well with Rnb/Soul.

 

[Awesome Wells]

Jay's least lyrical album was Magna Carta. And that's his worst album. It's not a mystery. Lol. Jay usually is great at saying alot with a little. On that album the nikka wasn't saying nothing. Even on BP3. Jay got shyt like Thank You. He dont got no songs u can say he lyrically bodied on Magna Carta. In any capacity. nikka wasn't saying shyt on that album. Lol

 

[Ziggiy]

I never liked Heaven. The flow he used on that always sounded unnatural to me, for him. And lyrically, I didn't think it was deep. God's Son was full of songs that just felt like he as trying to be the anti-Jay. LOL!! His best sh*t has always been songs that sound natural for him to make. His new sh*t sounds like Nas. On that album, you could tell he enjoyed recording "Made You Look". That sounds like Nas. The real Nas.

And that's my guy, but he spent 3-4 albums trying to push himself into territories that don’t really work for him. When he just sticks to his strengths, like what he's been doing since 2020, then he wins. Because that's his lane. All that other sh*t just made him sound like he was reaching for a sound that never really hit for him.

I don’t think Jay would want to make those kinds of records though. And he shouldn't. Those are Nas records. Same as Nas can't make a Big Pimpin' or PSA, or 99 Problems, or Where I'm From, or Can't Knock The Hustle, or Politics As Usual, or Dead Presidents. These are tracks that can only be made by the people that actually made them. That's why they're classics.

Dead Presidents is literally BUILT off of a Nas sample lol. Nas could do Dead Presidents in his sleep.

Nas also has the playa pimpin Jiggy songs that were hits. You Owe Me is a hit song. Oochie Wally is a hit song.

He’s got the sing a long shiny commercial jams. Street Dreams is a hit song.

Nas has played and succeeded in the realm Jay has. Jay has only recently begun toeing the line in the realm Nas has. To Jay’s credit, I really like 444, its an incredible album. But Nas been done mastered that when he was in his 20’s.

 

[Awesome Wells]

This is his lane it would make no sense for him not to make these type of songs when he goes well with Rnb/Soul.

This is a classic!!

But this was done right around when he was still in his prime. Like '99, I believe. So during this time, he was still untouchable. He could do the R&B joints and still sound like Nas. But his own tracks about women, I don’t know, bro, lol. He's always been a little shaky with that.

 

[Pop123]

This is his lane it would make no sense for him not to make these type of songs when he goes well with Rnb/Soul.

I wouldn’t mind a whole album from son on this energy, . That ain’t happening tho, KD1 the closest we will get lol