Nas: "I Don't See Enough Emcees Who Are Brave Enough To Be Honest"

[Meta_Conscious]

Nas aint in a position to put on positive artist yet?

he do a lot of talking... for a so called Don...

 

[Karl.]

Hip hop is dead again?

 

[High Revolutionary]

The problem with the industry is the same problem with the economy; too much collusion.

 

[Red_Eyez]

Nas isn't exactly honest in his music is he and he does songs with known frauds and liars so his just as bad as them

 

[5 Grand]

The problem with Nas and other vets/legends is they co-sign bullshit tho. I mean nobody told him to do a songs with the "superfriends". And those are the niggas who aren't being honest just making the same lame bullshit. Nas been saying this shit but still co-signs bullshit bummy ass rappers. And not just him Jay and Kanye do the same bullshit co-signing and collabing with wack rappers.

I knew someone was going to say this,this has been the typical predictable response on the IC whenever NAS speaks on the state of hip-hop.

The same "buh buh but Nas did songs with Ross,wayne,etc" cmon that's such a cheap shot as long as Nas continues to stay true to his music that's all that matters. And when he does reach out or collabs with these artist yall throw stones at its not on some party and bullsh** type record its on some "accidental murders","champions","kings and queens","my generation(wayne killed it),etc

Not to compare Nas to JESUS but its no different than when he use to sit with sinners or talk with prostitutes and people started questioning him. It's 2014 and some of yall still havnt learn that everything isn't black and white. You cant put yourself on a pedestal like "oh im too good to rap with such such" cause than you become self righteous and thats one of the biggest contradiction of them all. Get out of that hiphop purist mentality cause I grew up on the golden era and I don't even think that way. Talent recognize talent thats how good music is made.

are you really using a Jesus analogy on the IC

this is beyond nas this is the biggest issue in hip hop point blank. you got niggas talking about the game ain't the same but they don't wanna name names. nas needs to call out who he thinks is not being honest. for the last 15 years people have been saying the game is wack or copycatting or these rappers don't respect the artform yet they never challenge to status quo and call out niggas.

part of being honest is actually challenging your peers to step their fucking game up. Nas does not do that. those rappers do one song with nas then go back to the same old bullshit. Its like when there is a stop to violence rally and 10 hours later someone else is getting killed over stupid shit in that same hood the rally was in.

Nosign @ the bolded. Back in 2003 when Nas had his beef with Jay Z and they wouldn't let him do his thing at Summer Jam Nas went on `Power 105 and made a rant about the state of the industry and named names. He called out NORE and Cam'ron. He called out the radio stations. In fact, the whole Stillmatic album was him calling out rappers that he had beef with.

You might say, "yeah but that was 10 years ago". Maybe so but you can't say that at one point Nas didn't call people out and name names. But also, you can't make a career calling out rappers and telling people to step their game up, you'd make too many enemies and you'd eventually get blacklisted.

 

[rip.dilla]

The rapper sits down with Michael Eric Dyson at Georgetown University to talk about the state and politics of Hip Hop.

Georgetown Sociology professor Michael Eric Dyson and Nas visited the school’s Gaton Hall for a more than hour-long conversation with James Peterson, director of Africana studies at Lehigh University. Sitting down in front of a live audience the night before Nas’ anniversary performance of Illmatic at the Kennedy Center, the pair discussed the state of Hip Hop and the culture’s recent spike in academia.

Remembering their first meeting, Nas recounted being surprised that Dyson, who has written several academic books on various topics within Hip Hop, knew his lyrics by heart. “We met and I didn’t know he would know my stuff and since then we just clicked,” he said. “He’s had my back. I had his. He’s like one of the smartest guys I’ve ever met.

"There’s not a lot of people from your generation that really educated people, that have a voice out there, who really can identify with us and you,” Nas added in reference to the largely student-filled audience. “He’s our guy. We been tight for years.”

Asked about his view on the current state of Hip Hop, Nas explained pride in seeing musicians like 9th Wonder and himself engaging academically at institutions like Harvard. “It’s so many layers to that question, where is Hip Hop?” he said. “You talk about 9th Wonder at Harvard, I recently been over there and met with Skip Gates and Dr. Morgan and just watching where Hip Hop is today. Myself, re-releasing an album from 20 years ago is like, '20 years? That’s crazy.'”

Later in the interview, Nas described the difficulty in balancing socially conscious subject matter in music without coming off as preachy. “I don’t see enough emcees who are brave enough to be honest,” he said. “I would like to see more of that. There’s a lot of good stuff. There’s a lot of bad in Rap. The socially conscious stuff can come off sometime as preachy, so a lot of people tend to stay away from it. That ain’t their bag. That’s not what they do. But still, they kind of have some artistic responsibility to do more than what’s the latest trend...I would like to see people remember it’s an artform because the better we all become we push each other to make the whole artform better. Then we won’t have to worry about who won the Grammy.”

During the sit-down, Nas described his early motivation to bring his music into higher education. “When I first started I said, ‘You know, it would be cool to talk at colleges...but that would never happen,’” he said. “That’s really what I thought. I didn’t know. It’s kind of like surreal but then at the same time, it’s what it’s supposed to be. Especially for me, at a place like the John F. Kennedy Center, I had like dreams of that kind of stuff early. I didn't think it was really possible. I kind of gave away those dreams. I let those dreams go. Now that it’s here, that it’s come around to this, it feels like this is where it’s supposed to be.”

Dyson, who authored the book Holler If You Hear Me on Tupac Shakur, argued the case that artists like Nas deserve a place in the classroom. “The word genius is bandied about, but this guy is a rhetorical genius,” he said. “And at 16: ‘Verbal assasin, my architect pleases / When I was 12, I went to hell for snuffing Jesus,’” he rapped, referencing Nas’ professional debut on the Main Source album Breaking Atoms. “Sixteen? Like dude, who is this guy at the barbeque? That ain’t no regular barbeque. And then, at 19 as a prodigy: ‘I need a new nigga for this black cloud to follow / ‘Cause while it’s over me, it’s too dark to see tomorrow / I changed my motto...’”

“The point is, now, a guy with a PhD from Princeton, a guy with a PhD from Penn is discussing the music of a guy from Queensbridge,” he continued. “So his dream about getting into college, celebrate that...The fact is, we teach at Harvard, at Georgetown, at Princeton, at Yale...the works of these gifted artists because they have something profound and important. And I think, just as we study Hemingway, I think, just as we study Morrison, I think, just as we study Homer, we study a Nas to understand the verbal invention of the culture.”

Referencing his Q-Tip produced song on Illmatic, Nas explained the inspiration behind “One Love” and talked about the realities he faced as a youth in New York. “When Doc over here was saying that I have a brother in prison, it wasn’t my blood brother," he said. "It was a friend brother, a couple of friends, and I wrote about them on a song called ‘One Love’ on my first record. It resonated with him because he has his real blood brother behind the wall, been there for years. Of course we all know the problems is out of hand with the amount of Blacks, Latinos and poor Whites that are thrown in jail and not given a chance to get out. In New York alone at least 46,000 a year get locked up, it’s probably the highest in the nation. Most of them are probably 16 and 17 years old, charged as adults for the most part. It’s really like a railroad system. We know how easy it is to be profiled. We know what we’re up against.

“When I was 15 or 16, we were hearing that most Black men won’t make it to be 25,” he added. So we were kind of like on a hurry-up process. Get it now, get money now, live now, have kids now. Everything now because tomorrow is not promised in the situation that we was in.”

Spoiler

 

[zombie]

95% of these young rap niggas and bitches are a disappointment.

 

[jono]

Nas calls out the industry all the time. Ain't much you can do when 99% of people don't care and if you don't want to be perceived as being an "elitist"/"hater"/"bitter old nigga" like KRS and others.

He did the Hot 97 interview in 2001, named his album Hip-Hop is dead and had a song on there called Carry on Tradition which was aimed at young rappers.

Only thing he can do is go with the current while staying true to himself in the process. He can't control what other people write or what the consumers buy.

 

[*~queenbee~*]

@clairascanbe, guurrrl shut up! It's a known fact that Nas is a hypocritical asshole. Like others had mentioned before me, Nas had made songs with emcees that are not honest. If he's going to be preaching to the choir then he needs to practice what he preach.

 

[ocelot]

lol @Jesus

 

[Ear2DaSt]

Outkast is more hype and less bout that Art!

Jay and Em aint bout that Art!

 

[D0wn]

So Nas forgot about Ro$$ ?

Ro$$ is compassionate about his composition. Hes here to supercede his succesors, With honesty in his music,and a slice of dice pineapple.

He was starving from the start, now he the same nigga pushing jaguars.

His emotion is felt, his Raps of Pies, moving weight, Crab cakes and meatloaf.

He's so sophisticated, with Oyster Perpetuals.

Nas aint Inspiring the community, to put Lemon pepper on their muthafuckIn Wangs!

 

[Ear2DaSt]

Ross aint bout that Art!

 

[clairvoyance]

@clairascanbe, guurrrl shut up! It's a known fact that Nas is a hypocritical asshole. Like others had mentioned before me, Nas had made songs with emcees that are not honest. If he's going to be preaching to the choir then he needs to practice what he preach.

Im not a girl, what's the name of the dude who changes names?

 

[MR.CJ]

Well stop collaborating with wack rappers

Smarten up nas

 

[StoneColdMikey]

Kendrick and cole? Krit?

 

[drsnappple]

To be completely honest I've been waiting for rap to grow up for a long time. In 10 years are rappers really still going to be saying the same asinine shit? It has to change at some time, if not to be socially conscious then just not to be stagnant.

I have 20x more respect for rappers like Nas and Andre for lines like "How dare I throw it on the floor/when people are poor." Rappers are literally scared to say shit like that, even if they believe it. Rick Ross would never publicly state that something like gang violence is terrible, even though that should be seen as a given.

 

[rapmusic]

NAS can never do right in people's eyes man. His last album was excellent but people still had a problem with it because he was talking about his divorce.. I mean like he was saying how many rappers in the mainstream would even talk about that? Niggas always talking about we need to bring NY back and shit, but people overlooked this album.. You said his beats were boring so he stepped it up... You said he was pretty much boring but he showed you that he could still rhyme.. People love calling NAS a hypocrite but it's ok for Jay To make a song saying noggas need to stop using Autotune and stop wearing tight pants...but he goes on to work with dudes who use Autotune and he's now wearing tight pants at 45 years old! Nigga out here looking like a hiphop Bill Cosby and it's ok. This ain't a I love NAS but hate Jay thing but c'mon man!

 

[GetoBoy]

NAS can never do right in people's eyes man. His last album was excellent but people still had a problem with it because he was talking about his divorce.. I mean like he was saying how many rappers in the mainstream would even talk about that? Niggas always talking about we need to bring NY back and shit, but people overlooked this album.. You said his beats were boring so he stepped it up... You said he was pretty much boring but he showed you that he could still rhyme.. People love calling NAS a hypocrite but it's ok for Jay To make a song saying noggas need to stop using Autotune and stop wearing tight pants...but he goes on to work with dudes who use Autotune and he's now wearing tight pants at 45 years old! Nigga out here looking like a hiphop Bill Cosby and it's ok. This ain't a I love NAS but hate Jay thing but c'mon man!

C'mon bruh the whole ppl hate on nas but give jay a pass argument ain't even close to true... Neither one of them get a pass so stop it

 

[Ear2DaSt]

Theres not one rapper that hasn't done some immature sh*t.

if you wan't some boring azz sh*t go read a book.

If you wanna live in a perfect world go read a magazine.