All semantics aside, even without consideration that Tupac passed on at 25, Tupac's discography is levels above and beyond Nas in both consistency and depth. The quality of Tupac's catalog reaches a whole 'nother magnitude then the offerings of Nas.
From 1994 - 1996
- Thug Life: Volume 1
- Me Against the World
- All Eyez on Me
- The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory
^ during those two years alone, from 1994-1996 - he dropped four albums that were top to bottom (from start to finish) full of legendary tracks. Tupac's consistency beats Ray Allen at the free throw line.
Tupac is that 30 PPG scorer, even the latter portion of his posthumous catalog (which was misproduced) is like a 20 PPG "Floor Jordan" coming back with the Wizards - yet still leading his team. Nas is more like Karl Malone, he played longer but he was never putting up Jordan numbers
If you were to make a starting team of their best songs, with a depth chart (Madden style) -the second tier of Tupac's catalog is still above Nas, which means Tupac's team beats Nas with it's second and third stringers. Tupac by far has the greatest catalog in hip-hop, the offerings of Tupac's posthumous catalog beats Nas by a considerable margin
If you want a fair comparison on Tupac's catalog you need to look outside the genre of hip-hop, here album artists like Al Green, Marvin Gaye and The Beatles could give Tupac a run for his money. I'd say The Beatles beat out Tupac but you have to consider that all of Tupac's work was done during a 4 year period from 1992-1996, while The Beatles were basically around for most of the 60s
The most evident destroyer to any argument of the contrary is the fact that Nas had an additional twenty years to live and not only has not shown any clear separation but he hasn't matched Tupac in any regard . . even quantity