Another thing I did was take three classic beats and put Nas freestyles over them for a mixtape called QB’s Finest. I inserted the mixtapes into a subscription of The Source, and so everyone who subscribed to it got the mixtape too. I was trying to set the market up. Just because we have Lauryn Hill singing doesn’t mean that Nas is not still on his llmatic shit.
I was nervous all the time. While I was mastering, Q-Tip said to me, “You’re killing his career.” Q-Tip [had a big role on Illmatic] but he didn’t produce on It Was Written. Nas is an artist’s artist. My whole thing was I didn’t want him to end up being like Kool G Rap.
Tone: In ‘96, we had just finished Soul for Real’s album and we had Mary J. Blige out. Nas had always been a friend of mine since “Back to the Grill” with MC Serch, and at the time, I was a rapper and Nas was a rapper. There was kind of a rivalry thing between us. But in ‘96, I wasn’t rapping anymore, just producing. Still, that was big on his part to look past [the rivalry].
At the time, we were managed by Steve Stoute, who was also looking to manage Nas. In the conversation Steve had with Nas, he said, “You know, once you’re in with Trackmasters, they tend to produce the record.”
That didn’t really sit well with Nas because Nas was known as an underground rapper and we’d had a lot of mainstream success. In the beginning it was like trying to put a square peg in a round hole. But Nas agreed to give it a shot and we were all excited.
Poke: We felt a lot of pressure because Illmatic was a benchmark.
Tone: We both managed to ignore the criticism that people started to give us because here we were going in with Nas and we were going to make radio records with him. But Nas didn’t really know that we come from the underground. We come from Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, the Real Roxanne—that era.
Nas is used to dealing with producers like Large Professor, Q-Tip, DJ Premier—raw hip-hop. Raw hip-hop is good—we love it—but the music also has to have enough appeal to get the people in the stores to buy your record, not just your homeboy on the block.
Back then, if you got labeled a “sellout,” you were finished. We didn’t want Nas to lose credibility. So we had to make sure that we could get him middle-of-the-rado stuff that radio and the hood could understand.
Once Nas got comfortable and we had a game plan, things started to come together. We knew that for this album we were going to have to bring in other people, like DJ Premier, so that people wouldn’t say we tried to make this guy a commercial rapper.
“ALBUM INTRO”
Produced by: Nas and Trackmasters
Steve Stoute: We all worked on the album cover together but it was Nas’ idea. He started as a kid and then we showed him with the same shit as a man. There was no fly album covers that were thoughtful before that. The Illmatic cover didn’t inspire Biggie—Biggie jacked it.
Nas: If you listen to the beginning of Ready to Die, Biggie tells a story. We had the greatest rappers that could rap dominating the ‘80s and now here we come, young guys, so we had to say who we was. This was my story.
Tone: Nas wanted to portray this whole symbolism of being taken out of handcuffs and being set free. So we took the N.W.A. approach, with the interludes and sound effects and theatrics.
All the sample stuff and the music, that was pretty much our concept. We would introduce songs to Nas—some with hooks, some without hooks—to get him comfortable, so we could articulate properly our vision.
“THE MESSAGE”
Produced by: Trackmasters
Nas: There were lots of new rappers in the game and lots of us were making noise. You had Jay Z, Mobb Deep, Raekwon. 2Pac was going crazy. Everybody was gunning for position. That was my feeling on “The Message” like, “Yo, back up, everybody.”
It was a serious point in rap. Everyone was lyrical, everyone would battle you, everyone had a crew. Crews back then wasn’t only popping bottles, they was popping pistols too. There was a moment where it wasn’t just about being a fly guy with money, it was, “I’m still in the streets. I still got one foot in the streets.” I hadn’t really been shot [like I say in the song] but everyone else around me, so I was their voice.
Tone: I was at home watching The Professional one night. The movie ended and the song “Shape of My Heart” by Sting came on. I jumped up and said, “Oh my God.” I ran down to the record store, found out who made it, went home, and chopped it up. It was the first time we experimented with Latin-feeling guitars.
I brought the beat to the studio one night at the end of a session, at Chung King, and they were like, “What do we work on next?” I threw the cassette on and the intro had Nas really stuck because we got the intro from Scarface, which was really important to him. He was listening to it but when the drums kicked in, he went bananas. He jumped up and instantly he knew the rhyme for the record.
Nas: I saw Jay Z driving a Lexus with the TVs in it. I got rid of my Lexus at that point and I was looking for the next best thing. So that line— “Lex with TV sets, the minimum”—wasn’t a shot at Jay but he inspired that line.
Tone: There was some little jabs at other rappers in that record. [Laughs.] The Lex line was directed at Jay Z. Jay was fronting hard with the Lexus, at the time, in his videos and there was a little rivalry brewing. It hadn’t really started yet, but it was brewing. l can say that since they’re friends now.
Poke: He definitely was referring to New York as a whole with the “one king” line.
I was nervous all the time. While I was mastering, Q-Tip said to me, “You’re killing his career.” Q-Tip [had a big role on Illmatic] but he didn’t produce on It Was Written. Nas is an artist’s artist. My whole thing was I didn’t want him to end up being like Kool G Rap.
Tone: In ‘96, we had just finished Soul for Real’s album and we had Mary J. Blige out. Nas had always been a friend of mine since “Back to the Grill” with MC Serch, and at the time, I was a rapper and Nas was a rapper. There was kind of a rivalry thing between us. But in ‘96, I wasn’t rapping anymore, just producing. Still, that was big on his part to look past [the rivalry].
At the time, we were managed by Steve Stoute, who was also looking to manage Nas. In the conversation Steve had with Nas, he said, “You know, once you’re in with Trackmasters, they tend to produce the record.”
That didn’t really sit well with Nas because Nas was known as an underground rapper and we’d had a lot of mainstream success. In the beginning it was like trying to put a square peg in a round hole. But Nas agreed to give it a shot and we were all excited.
Poke: We felt a lot of pressure because Illmatic was a benchmark.
Tone: We both managed to ignore the criticism that people started to give us because here we were going in with Nas and we were going to make radio records with him. But Nas didn’t really know that we come from the underground. We come from Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, the Real Roxanne—that era.
Nas is used to dealing with producers like Large Professor, Q-Tip, DJ Premier—raw hip-hop. Raw hip-hop is good—we love it—but the music also has to have enough appeal to get the people in the stores to buy your record, not just your homeboy on the block.
Back then, if you got labeled a “sellout,” you were finished. We didn’t want Nas to lose credibility. So we had to make sure that we could get him middle-of-the-rado stuff that radio and the hood could understand.
Once Nas got comfortable and we had a game plan, things started to come together. We knew that for this album we were going to have to bring in other people, like DJ Premier, so that people wouldn’t say we tried to make this guy a commercial rapper.
“ALBUM INTRO”
Produced by: Nas and Trackmasters
Steve Stoute: We all worked on the album cover together but it was Nas’ idea. He started as a kid and then we showed him with the same shit as a man. There was no fly album covers that were thoughtful before that. The Illmatic cover didn’t inspire Biggie—Biggie jacked it.
Nas: If you listen to the beginning of Ready to Die, Biggie tells a story. We had the greatest rappers that could rap dominating the ‘80s and now here we come, young guys, so we had to say who we was. This was my story.
Tone: Nas wanted to portray this whole symbolism of being taken out of handcuffs and being set free. So we took the N.W.A. approach, with the interludes and sound effects and theatrics.
All the sample stuff and the music, that was pretty much our concept. We would introduce songs to Nas—some with hooks, some without hooks—to get him comfortable, so we could articulate properly our vision.
“THE MESSAGE”
Produced by: Trackmasters
Nas: There were lots of new rappers in the game and lots of us were making noise. You had Jay Z, Mobb Deep, Raekwon. 2Pac was going crazy. Everybody was gunning for position. That was my feeling on “The Message” like, “Yo, back up, everybody.”
It was a serious point in rap. Everyone was lyrical, everyone would battle you, everyone had a crew. Crews back then wasn’t only popping bottles, they was popping pistols too. There was a moment where it wasn’t just about being a fly guy with money, it was, “I’m still in the streets. I still got one foot in the streets.” I hadn’t really been shot [like I say in the song] but everyone else around me, so I was their voice.
Tone: I was at home watching The Professional one night. The movie ended and the song “Shape of My Heart” by Sting came on. I jumped up and said, “Oh my God.” I ran down to the record store, found out who made it, went home, and chopped it up. It was the first time we experimented with Latin-feeling guitars.
I brought the beat to the studio one night at the end of a session, at Chung King, and they were like, “What do we work on next?” I threw the cassette on and the intro had Nas really stuck because we got the intro from Scarface, which was really important to him. He was listening to it but when the drums kicked in, he went bananas. He jumped up and instantly he knew the rhyme for the record.
Nas: I saw Jay Z driving a Lexus with the TVs in it. I got rid of my Lexus at that point and I was looking for the next best thing. So that line— “Lex with TV sets, the minimum”—wasn’t a shot at Jay but he inspired that line.
Tone: There was some little jabs at other rappers in that record. [Laughs.] The Lex line was directed at Jay Z. Jay was fronting hard with the Lexus, at the time, in his videos and there was a little rivalry brewing. It hadn’t really started yet, but it was brewing. l can say that since they’re friends now.
Poke: He definitely was referring to New York as a whole with the “one king” line.
