Nas and Jay Z are all good friends now, and have been on four songs together since after they squashed their beef in 2005. But their beef is still discussed in Hip Hop as one of the most memorable hip hop battles of all time. While speaking on the Tupac and Biggie beef during an MTV Special recently, the discussion got deviated to his past beef with Jay Z, and he had this to say about the period...
"Today’s music industry it’s really about money now and back then during that period, when you talk about me battling with Jay, it was about something else. It was not just about being the top guy in Rap. It felt like we were leaders of nations. Not that we were egotistical as, 'I’m the leader.' No, not in that sense. I mean what you felt surrounding us was there was an importance in what we were doing that mattered more than just success. It was more than just, 'Oh my record’s going to sell.' Yeah we need the records to sell to make money. That was something we thought about, but put that aside. When 'Pac made 'Dear Mama,' and these records and then he had to switch up to get in war mode, these were chess moves. This was real… Today, it’s a whole 'nother world. I’ll just leave like that."
Yea, true, when Nas and Jay Z were beefing, it wasn't really about who was richer. Obviously at the time, Jay Z had overtaken Nas in the finance department already, but still, it was about skills on the mic. And I guess that was what made it so great...it had the whole hip hop world divided into two side...the Jay Z fans, and the Nas fans. I had some of my most interesting Hip Hop arguments at the time. I also made some very good friends from the opposition camp as well. I can't believe that was 13 years ago already.
No comments:
Post a Comment