I’ve been listening to the Distant Relatives album, and I honestly think it’s Nas’ best work since God’s Son. The partnership with “Junior Gong” has him sharper and more revitalized than he has with recent albums and I think having a creative foil to work with has reigned in his often-loose lyrical content to create an album that is sonically and thematically tight and coherent. With that said, I’d like to propose some more collaborations that could bring the best out of Mr. Jones:
terribly photoshopped image from Vibe
Nas and J Cole – Carry the Torch
While he’s signed to Jay-Z’s Roc Nation imprint, I think I’m not the only one who can see the parallels between the Fayetteville-based new-comer and God’s Son. At a young age, Cole displays the same maturity, and insight that Nas did early in his career, while staying just rough enough around the edges to become a compelling personality on record that we as listeners hope to see develop and grow with time. I think “real”–I hate that term–hip-hop fans would go peanut-encrusted monkey shit at hearing the young gun trade compound rhyme schemes with the elder statesmen that laid the foundation for his style.
Nas and Jay-Z – Destroy and Rebuild
The last of the Great MC’s, like two monuments from a bygone era, Nas and Jay-Z will always remind fans of the mid-90′s, one of hip-hop’s greatest era’s when it came to solo achievements. While they are inextricably linked by their 2001-02 beef, it’s interesting to see how their careers have diverged and reconnected since then. Jay has become one of Pop Culture’s greatest crossover figures, while Nas seems to intermittently flirt with obscurity. One thing is certain, their chemistry on the two records that they’ve shared, “Black Republican” from Nas’ Hip-Hop is Dead and “Success” from American Gangster, left fans wanting for more collaborations between them, especially with Nas’ propensity to take sneaky shots at Jay post-beef.
Nas and Rakim – Bridging the Gap
This was talked about and rumoured to take place for a long time but never materialised, much to the chagrin of those “real” fans I mentioned earlier. If Nas is an elder statesmen, then Rakim is an institution. I might be wrong but I believe the closest they have come to a collab thus far were their verses on the Nike Air Force 1 song that Kanye produced a few years ago. Just like J. Cole may catch the baton from Nas (||), Nas has successfully carried on Rakim’s legacy of complex and spiritual lyricism, so this pairing just seems natural.
Nas and Scarface – The Message
The Down South Rakim meets The God’s Son, Scarface took Rakim’s blueprint much like Nas did, but applied it to sound-beds suited to his Houston heritage, which gives his country twang an impact that is both musical and lyrical. Just like Distant Relatives gives us the opportunity to hear Nas over reggae- and afrobeat-influenced beats for the first time, I think it would be dope to hear an entire album of Nas and ‘Face Mob going back and forth over the type of soulful, bass-heavy, and undeniably Southern production that Kanye, Mike Dean and T-Mix cooked up for The Fix. Scarface is one of the most somber and spiritual voices in Hip-Hop, so hopefully he would be able to steer Nas in the direction ofStillmatic era standouts like “One Mic” and “Heaven.”
Nas and AZ – Life’s A Bitch: The Album
The reason their long relationship hasn’t resulted in a full-album collaboration is beyond me. AZ was the only guest appearance on Nas’ classic first album, and the pair have appeared on countless songs together as well as two group albums with the Firm. Even if AZ has never been the most lucrative commodity, I think Nas is at a stage in his career where doesn’t need to make any attempt to relate to the 106 and Park set as that audience has been raised on a completely different type of Hip-Hop, so he could throw this out to the diehards. In fact, just release a cassette of Esco and Sosa free-styling over 90′s beats for an hour, and I think we’ll be straight.
Nas and Game – Take it In Blood
Of the many, many–many–play books that Game studied to develop his style, Nas’ probably gets the most citations lyrically. As a student of Nas, Game is a lot less subtle and more aggressive than his forebearer, and that duality created an undeniable Chemistry on the handful of tracks they’ve worked on thus far. Once again, there’s added appeal here due to the regional mixture, imagine Nas taking Game to Queens over a Primo beat, before the bi-coastal tandem bounce six-fours down Crenshaw over Dre production. Nas is probably one of the few rappers still in the game that could get Primo and Dre on the same project, in fact he’s probably the only MC still rhyming not named Eminem that could get Dre out of bed for anything less than a Monster cheque.
Nas and Rage Against the Machine – Revolutionary Warfare
I saw Nas perform with a live band two summers ago at Webster Hall, and the results were…mixed to say the least. With an inexperienced and noisy band, Nas was drowned out and never picked up the intensity to match his younger, more eager backing band. Rage Against the Machine are one of the most celebrated and influential Rock groups of the last 15 years, but lead-singer Zack De La Rocha’s poor delivery as an MC has always been a sticking point with me. Now put the band’s instrumentalists together with one of the greatest MC’s in history and what do you get? Powerful lyrics over powerful grooves and Tom Morello’s innovative guitar noises? or a sleepy sounding Nas trying to find his place in the cacophony? Either way it would make an interesting listen.
