2 years ago, just when Nas enjoying the fruits of his labor of having been in the rap game for 20 years, and dropped ten albums in that time frame, he was hit with a bomb. Dream Hampton, a journalist/writer made some allegations that was strong enough to make a huge dent in Nas's career. She went on Twitter and told the world that Nas uses Ghostwriters.
WTF!!! I almost fell off my seat when I read that back in 2012. It was almost like finding out that the book I had been reading for guidance all my life was all fairy tale. In 2012, Dream Hampton, who is pretty close to Jay Z and Beyonce (she helped write Jay Z's Decoded book) was on Twitter defending the couple from people who were bashing them for not doing enough for the black community in America. Along the line, someone asked why Jay Z couldn't make an album with enlightening message for the blacks in America like Nas's Untitled (Nigger) album, and Miss Hampton hit back with...
“I think Jay writes what he believes. Nas' Ni**er album was largely written by Stic of dead prez and Jay Electronica,”
This accusations caused a lot of noise back in 2012, but Nas didn't address the situation then. In his latest song, The Season, he used the first few of the second verse to speak on it. Read the lines below.
Jay Elec doesn't write it
HOV couldn't write it, he vacationin'
Jungle the only brother I take shit from
Hassan give me lines, we talk all the time
So I guess if he inspired my song it ain't mine
Let me make this clear, they fear the gifted
Some say Shakespeare never existed
Wow, now, look at the amount of resistance
Attempts to chisel my face, from the mountain you guessed it
Bitch you guessed it
There, did I answer your questions?
So, now that's out the way let's get back to my message
Let me break it down line by line..."Jay Elec doesn't write it/HOV couldn't write it, he vacationin" This is Nas saying that contrary to what you might have heard from Dream Hampton, Jay Electronica doesn't write his rhymes. And he also beats his chest to say one of his peers that majority see as the greatest, Jay Z (HOV) couldn't come up with the type of complex rhymes he writes.
"Jungle the only brother I take shit from." Jay Electronica and Jay Z are brothers of the Five Percent Nation ( a black activist group), so, Nas makes a play of words by saying the only brother he takes lines from is his blood brother, Jabari (Jungle).
"Hassan give me lines, we talk all the time, so I guess if he inspired my song it ain't mine." Meaning, his barber, Hassan gives him lines (haircut lines), and that they talk a lot during the process, which he might get inspirations to write a rap verse from; but that that doesn't mean Hassan wrote his lines for him. This is also indirectly speaking on the input of Stic Man (of Dead Prez) and Jay Electronica on his Untitled (Nigger) album. Yea, they were in the studio with him, and gave him ideas for songs, and even wrote hooks for some of the songs off the album, but it doesn't mean they ghostwrote whole songs for him.
"Let me make this clear, they fear the gifted. Some say Shakespeare never existed." Meaning, when some people fear the gifted, and don't want to believe that they can really posses all the gift they possess, they make up stories to assassinate the character of the gifted. Like how some people believe Shakespeare never existed.
"Wow, now look at the amount of resistance. Attempts to chisel my face, from the mountain you guessed it. Bitch you guessed it." He is saying people like Dream Hampton are trying to chisel his face from the hip hop Mount Rushmore.
"There, did I answer your questions? So, now that's out the way let's get back to my message." Now that he has answered the question on whether or not he uses ghostwriters, he would like to go back to rapping.
I got some ideas for this piece from Rap Genius. You guys should visit that site once a while for rap lyrics translations.
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