Freeway Talks About First Time Meeting Nas After Their Beef

Back in the days of the Nas and Jay Z beef, the first direct response Nas gave to Jay Z's 2001 summer jam stage diss was a track titled Stillmatic. On that track, Nas not only went at Jay, he went at Beanie Siegel, Freeway, and the all Rocafella crew. They all came back at him individually, and as a collective whole on different songs. This meant Freeway had diss tracks aimed at Nas.

Those times are in the past now. Nas and Jay Z have long squashed their beef, and were even business partners at one point. In his recent DJ VLad interview, former Rocefella Records artist, Freeway spoke about the first time he met Nas after their beef.

"I remember umm! It was the Roc Boys video. First time me and Nas really got to chop it up. I was...I had...after I shot my part, I had to leave cos I had a show tat night, so Nas was leaving out the same time. And I'm like 'damn dog.' I know I was coming at your neck and everything, but I fucking your shit. I was like they used to call me the Philly Nas.' He was like, 'na Free, I love your shit too. I listen to all your shit, I love your shit.' He gave me a hug, then he got in th wrong Maybach. He got into Jay Maybach, then he got out and said 'this ain't my Maybach.' Then he got in his Maybach and pulled up." 

Freeway Speaks On His Struggle With Rap As A Muslim

Freeway, in a recent interview spoke on how rap music is considered Haraam (sinful) by the Islamic religion, and that as a Muslim, he has a tough inner battle with continuing with the kind of music he makes. But he says he has to keep doing it to feed his family. Islam is a very prominent religion practised in Philadelphia U.S.A, and that's Freeway's home-town.






"I never really, really stopped [making music]," he said. "I'm Muslim…and it's a difference of opinion if music is haraam or not, and haraam is something that's not lawful [in sharia], and the majority of the scholars agree that music is haraam. Me being a Muslim and trying to be a good Muslim, I was between should I do it or not and should I keep going with the music. It's definitely something I have a passion for, I'm good at and it's how I've been feeding my family for years. It's something that I struggled with, but I decided to continue working with the music. So after the Roc-A-Fella split, I really just had to gather my thoughts, get everything together and see what I was going to do next, and I just went back to what I know."




 I remember back in my teenage year when I was throwing parties every now and then, and one fell around when Muslims were fasting, and I had to go and pick up this female friend of mine after 7p.m, cos that's about the time they finished the daily fast. Why did I bring this up? It is really hard for you to live a normal fun filled life and follow some of religions strict rules.

Freeway Says He Never Felt Cool Dissing Nas Back In Day

For those that don't know, Freeway is a rapper, and a part of the old Roc-A-Fella crew...along with his boss, Jay-Z, and other rappers like Beanie Siegel, Memphis Bleek, Young Gunz...at the height of the Nas/Jay-Z war, all the Roc Boys took individual swipes at Nas for the sake of their boss's sake. Fast-forward 11 years, and Freeway is saying he never liked the idea of going at Nas...saying he always loved Nas's music.



"Yeah I got a chance to meet him. Cool story, so everybody knows I dissed Nas a couple times when he was riding for Jay or whatever, but I always loved Nas' music. But I was riding for the team no matter what," Free said in an interview. "So we was at the video shoot for "Roc Boys" after he and Jay got cool. We were leaving out at the same time, so I stopped him and I was like 'Yo I love your music dawg' and he was like 'I love your music too.' So he gave me a pound and we embraced each other. I just seen him in Philly a couple weeks ago performing at the Electric Factory. It hurt but it was like helping me be a man at the same time, like you do things that you don't want to do but you got to do it." (VIBE)





Those were some interesting times for real...I mean the Nas and Jay-Z war. I think it helped both artists. But for real, as a Nas fan as far back as the 90s, I thought Jay had destroyed him with Takeover...cos at the time, Jay was all over TV and radio. I guess that's why Ether is such a great diss track. But, even before Ether, there was a freestyle diss track titled, Stillmatic where Nas took slight jabs at the whole Rocafella crew...check out some lines from the diss track below....the beat used to give me chills... I think it was from one of Rakim's old songs.


Rip the FREEWAY, shoot through MEMPHIS with money bags
Stop in Philly, order cheese steaks and eat BEANS fast
And bring it back up top, remove the fake king of New York
You show off, I count off when you sample my voice
I rule you, before, you used to rap like the FU-SHNICKENS
NAS designed your BLUEPRINT, who you kidding?
Is he H TO THE IZZO, M TO THE IZZO?
For shizzle you phony, the rapping version of SISQO
And that's for certain, you clone me, your wack clothes line
I'd rather Sean John, bore me with your fake coke rhymes
And those times, they never took place, you liar
Un was your first court case, you had no priors
You master fabricated stories of streets and sound slick
Have you surrounded, you and the faggot you down with

While they riding NAS, trying to boost their careers
Corny as CORMEGA, all you Hip-Hop queers
Since ILLMATIC, IT WAS WRITTEN: I AM...NASTRADAMUS
That's the answers to the puzzle I gave you, now here's a promise
My next few albums, instead of projects,
They'll be a difficult test inside the cover for the mind's optics