It’s happening this time. . .
During the early and mid-2000s, Nas and AZ teased plans of a collaborative album. However, with both parties never finding time to destroy and rebuild in the studio, the two rare collaborated. While there was never a love lost between the two, outside influences and labels caused the two to have way less content together than we wanted to.
From the outside looking in, music label heads didn’t want AZ on tracks with Nas. That’s not saying that AZ is a better lyricist or vice versa; but his unorthodox flow would always outshine every rapper. Given the initial verse on Illmatic from Nas, AZ had arguably the most recited verse on the entire project.
This pissed off those same label heads back in the day; as they were presenting Nas as the successor to Rakim. During Pac and Biggie’s run, Nas was outselling every other rapper in the world with the exception of those two. This prompted dirty tactics behind-the-scenes, where certain verses couldn’t get cleared, causing some static.
Luckily, the brothers kept any animosity internal and didn’t bring anything public. Now, with Nas running his own imprint at Mass Appeal and AZ’s Quiet Money movement intact, the public is finally getting more official collaborations. The first of which will happen in a few months, when AZ releases his Doe or Die 2 album.
He even took to the gram this weekend to confirm that Escobar would be on the album. Well, it’s been brought to our attention that a collaborative project is also in the works with the two NYC legends. Whether or not it’s a full-length album remains to be seen; but we’re expecting at least an EPs worth of content.
Look for both parties to give updates on the situation soon.