You can always count on Byron Bay’s premier festival Bluesfest to spend a solid few months consistently outdoing themselves with ‘holy shit’ extra lineup announces for their week-long extravaganza and today was no exception. Joining the already disgustingly stacked bill at this year’s edition of Bluesfest, which already includes the likes of Patti Smith, Jimmy Buffet, The Doobie Brothers, Courtney Barnett, Mary J. Blige, Santana, Neil Finn (and enough other acts to make your head spin and then also explode everywhere) will be none other than rap deity Nas.
Yes, the Illmatic One has just been announced as part of Bluesfest today by festival organisers, a move that’s sure to have hip-hop heads shitting their collective pants. The 13-time Grammy nominee is set to play alongside New Orleans brass ensemble The Soul Rebels for what is sure to be a batshit insane set. If you’re wondering what that might look like, have a look at this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnuGPqTEOCg
There’s no telling what else to expect, but the aforementioned Mary J. will be in the area and the two collaborated a couple of times before to great effect on the former’s Reach Out and the latter’s Love Is All We Need, so perhaps an onstage reunion is in order.
Bluesfest will mark the first time the Queens legend has been in Australia since his Illmatic Tour back in 2015. Also announced today were Australian country music icon Kasey Chambers, Busby Marou, Wouter Kellerman, Little Georgia and local Lucy Gallant.
It’s now just over a month away and the full schedule details are also available via the official Bluesfest website. Jump on there as well to get tickets while they last, as they surely will go absolutely flying now that news of Nas impending takeover is out there.
More Reading: Our 20 Year Retrospective of Nas’ ‘It Was Written’
Image: Acclaim
While 9th Wonder might be known for his work behind the boards with the likes of Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar, and Jay Z to name a few, it’s his latest enterprise finding him cement other artists into history. Working in accordance with Harvard University and their archival Hip-Hop project ‘These Are The Breaks’, 9th has been hard at work to categorise 200 of the culture’s most pivotal albums, tracking down every single sample used on each.
Unveiling the first four to make their place in musical history, he began with classics, Nas’ Illmatic, Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, A Tribe Called Quest’s Low End Theory and Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp a Butterfly. Speaking of his first picks he explained, “These are the first four we chose to start with to live for forever in the Harvard Library, and to be forever placed in the canon, complete with liner notes and the vinyl that was used in the production of the album.”
Each of these albums made an enormously significant impact since they were released, with many being granted ‘classic’ status almost immediately. It’s unclear whether the rest of the list will follow this tradition, or whether albums of a lesser-recognised status will make their way into the archive. Either way, 9th Wonder’s 200 will serve as a fitting representation of hip-hop to exhibit the future generations.
For a little more insight, check out the trailer to Wonder’s documentary where he investigates and teaches hip-hop at Harvard University. Let us know what you think should make it’s way into the rest of the 196.
Image: Hip Hop 4 Life
“Sophomore album.” Look at that term, really look at it, read it with meaning. It’s a scary phrase, isn’t it? It can strike fear and anxiety into any semi-established artist or band. Here you are, riding the expectations of all your newfound admirers, thanks to a definitive debut project that blew up beyond your wildest dreams. The pressure is immense.
Fans and critics will pick, pick, pick at every note. They will analyse and speculate over every lyric, and even assign it a numerical rating out of five or ten. Sometimes it doesn’t even matter how good your final product is, the savage consumers will still roast it. Just ask the Beastie Boys.
So now imagine you’re Nas, fresh off dropping one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time, built on the deep roots of an underground culture riddled with grit and grime. A 21-year-old kid with the title of ‘breakthrough artist’, but in reality Illmatic had only shifted half a million copies, which in relative terms is middle ground – especially in the days before streaming. It was a slow burner. Two years on still at the raw age of 23, still living in Queens, NY he was to drop the follow-up. To bang or to bust.
A lot had happened in those two years; Biggie, Tupac, Dre, Mobb Deep, Cypress Hill, The Roots, LL Cool J and O.D.B. had all put out new music that in one way or another helped shape the culture. The drama of East vs. West had heated up after Tupac went psycho nuts pointing fingers for the shooting / robbery at Quad studios, theatrics Nas wanted no part of.
The kids on the block would rant, “You better not sell out Nas.” “You better drop some fire, Nas.”
“Don’t let me down Nas.”
The same kids Nas used to mess with, but now with the promise of commercial success, meant he was always going to have to tread a fine line. He initially wanted to have Marley Marl as his album curator but destiny dictated otherwise. To the concern of many, Trackmasters were enrolled as executive producers. Although known for their commercialisation and mainstream success, Nas and his team remained cautious as to make sure that the record was hip-hop through and through, guest producers to the likes of DJ Premier, Dr. Dre and Mobb Deep were invited to link up on the album.
The introduction is vintage, the rattling of chains, the popping of gunshots, a wistful conversation about breaking free and escaping as free men to the promised land. Queue the boom-bap, a homeboy giving Nas the what’s what of the neighbourhood, “you know what I’m sayin?” Nas simply responds, “no question.” He’s a man with answers, after all.
The first track, and third single was The Message, effectively just a guitar chop taken from Sting’s Shape Of My Heart. Nas gets as nasty as ever, it was just so simple.
“So when I rhyme it’s sincerely yours
Be lighting L’s, sipping Coors, on all floors in project halls
Contemplating war n***** I was cool with before
We used to score together, uptown copping the raw
But uhh, a thug changes, and love changes
And best friends become strangers, word up”
DJ Premier jumped on Gave You Power, bringing epic, spooky flavours to the record. Watch Dem N?!@%$ sees Nas lay down bars on top of bars about looking over your shoulder at all times, to a seriously funky bassline and the sass of Foxy Brown on the hook. It’s a track that perfectly exemplifies his ambition to push the underground into the mainstream by combining rhyme with melody.
One of the more controversial decisions was to stick a track with Dr. Dre on the album. Nas was prodding the bear in the middle of the East vs. West feud, but also made a bold statement.
“We wanted to show that a New York rapper could rap on a Dr. Dre beat and it’s all love… Dre wasn’t about the drama; he was about making records.” Nas reflected on the collaboration all these years later.
The tune that ensued was Nas Is Coming. It didn’t leave a whole lot to the imagination. The outro as follows:
“Check this out, it’s Nasty Nas, and Dr. Dre
East meets west
That’s how we making it happen
That’s how it goes down for the nine-six
Nas let’s get this money
Let’s get paid
Sit back and watch all these motherfucking clowns out here
Riffing and beefing about this bullshit
Yo while they doing all that
We just gon’ kick back with these honeys
This Cristal and party to the year 2G”
The back end of the record does slightly differ from the first half. Collaborations with JoJo Hailey and Lauryn Hill were tell-tale signs of the new direction this album was taking.
“The strategy became, let’s give him harder records first, so that we can ease him into the radio records. We also tried to make sure that on the harder records, the hooks had enough of a sing-along quality that they were accessible enough to cross over to the mainstream. That was the strategy,” Poke of Trackmasters said in an interview.
It was intriguing that Black Lost Girl, probably the most commercial track on the album, wasn’t chosen to be released as one of the album’s three singles. The melodic hook sung by Joel “JoJo” Hailey was catchy and Nas’ QB version of the Donald Goines book by the same title, seemed to be tailored for radio but fate dictated otherwise.
If I Ruled The World on the other hand, was the lead release. A song Nas admitted took time to come around to, in the face of being called a sell-out, but he eventually came around when Lauryn Hill was invited to work on the project.
“We were one of the pioneers of, ‘Yo, let’s make block party records.’ Back then, DJs used to just put on instrumentals of an R&B record and MCs would rap over it. We had that mentality,” said Poke.
The tune and video took over two months to put together, getting the chorus perfect between the Kurtis Blow sample and Lauryn Hill’s ad-libs. It was the perfect lead single, as Nas pushed a message of freedom, with the shallow arrogance of being a self-proclaimed king, but Nas didn’t take the credit for changing the game.
“B.I.G. changed the playing field [of rap music] in a great way,” he stated in an interview. “You couldn’t be talking about you’re the don of the city and your record is only resonating to a couple of street people. If you’re the don, that means you need Mayor Giuliani dancing to your songs.”
You don’t have to change the game to be king. As a complete album from start to finish It Was Written is a certified classic… no question.
Words by Jack Ball
Image: Columbia
Novelty songs for films always tend to be some of the hidden gems in an artist’s catalog. Muse, Adele and Radiohead have all proven their worth on a slew of bold singles written to accompany the world of the big screen and now hip-hop royalty Erykah Badu and Nas are dipping their toes into the cinematic waters with their new single This Bitter Land, set to feature in the film The Land.
The film itself is an independent production directed by Steven Caple Jr. with Nas serving as executive producer. Having premiered at the Sundance Music Festival earlier this year, the film is a coming-of-age story that follows a group of teenagers who become involved in a drug trading community. You can watch the trailer below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pNpHOCRhkA
The song itself opens with a whisper of mournful strings and is accompanied by Badu’s low and soulful vocals, immediately creating a sense of unease and perfectly capturing the atmosphere of the trailer. The entrance of Nas then sees the song begin to slowly progress, with the rapper dropping his verses over the same string combo while Badu provides her haunting backing vocals.
From there the song slowly ascends to its dynamic peak, allowing Badu to show off her incredible vocal control and power, before it abruptly falls away into the abyss. Listen to the song below.
https://soundcloud.com/massappealrecs/nas-erykah-badu-this-bitter-land?in=massappealrecs/sets/the-land-music-from-the-motion
The film is also set to feature new music from the likes of Ezzy, Machine Gun Kelly and a collection of other prominent names from the urban music community.
Image: Mass Appeal
There have been many awesome, and many less-than-awesome crossover collaborations between hip-hop and rock and metal over the years. Aerosmith and Run DMC, Anthrax and Public Enemy on the game-changing Bring Tha Noize. Eminem and Marilyn Manson.Linkin Park and Jay Z. Amazingly, Dillinger Escape Plan and Jarren Brenton released this incredible song back in 2014, and most recently, Chance the Rapper and Death Cab For Cutie shared a mutual affection for another.
But there is one band who reign supreme in the wonderful world of rock-metal collaborations.
That band is Korn. Yes, Korn. The band who made white dreadlocks and eyebrow piercings inexplicably cool in the mid-90s. The Godfathers of nu-metal and probably its premier practitioners and the band behind some of the hits that defined that era.
Korn have long enjoyed a healthy relationship with hip-hop, with a remarkably high number of collaborations and crossover hits under their belts across the past two decades as well as their own members dabbling in the genre themselves (See: bassist Fieldy and his hardcore hip-hop album Rock’n Roll Gangster all the way back in 2002).
As one of the most popular metal bands of the last two decades and a band who pioneered a genre owing as much to rap as it does to metal and one that reached the zenith of its popularity while they were in their prime, it’s no surprise that Korn frequently worked with some of hip-hop’s biggest names.
These are five of their best collaborations:
Children Of The Korn ft. Ice Cube
Having covered Ice Cube’s Wicked 20 years ago, Korn would eventually get the chance to directly collaborate with Cube, who was evidently a huge influence of theirs, to create one of the better rap/rock collisions of all time.
For a song about how parents don’t understand ‘loud’ music with copious cuss words, forget Will Smith and ‘his good clean raps’, Ice Cube and Korn were the polar opposites.
Both artists were known for their defiant individuality and their liberal approach to freedom of speech. Just look at Ice Cube and his days in the NWA if you want to know whether or not he backs down (he doesn’t). Korn were also no stranger to waking up each morning and pissing off the world in a time where their profane and oftentimes dark lyrics raised the ire of many conservatives. Children Of The Korn is a great mix of both of them doing what they do best.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqfsnUkmZCA
Play Me ft. Nas
Reviewing Nas’ extensive back catalogue, it might be easier to list the very few artists he hasn’t had dealings with. Most are at least loosely connected to the wider sphere of hip-hop (although we’re still scratching our heads in bewilderment at his turn with Posh Spice on the abhorrent Full Stop). It makes sense then that Nas and Korn would have broke bread at some point and Play Me was the end result. Korn frontman Jonathan Davis reminisced on the call to Nas that got the ball rolling:
“I called [Nas] up and asked him if he wanted to be on the album. He said he was a fan of Korn and he’d love to do it.” He added, “It’s very heavy, it’s not anything to do with hip-hop at all, and he’s such a great lyricist that he has something to say. He’s really deep, and it comes across well.”
Nas delivers his usual dope bars and chants the chorus, showing no sign at all that he was out of his depth in another genre. Like most of his collaborations with other artist, the Illmatic one brings out the best in his partners and Korn were no exception.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVbWw3RKg1w
Coming Undone Wit It ft. Dem Franchize Boyz
While I fundamentally hate myself for liking this one, it is near impossible not to it’s that damn catchy.
Originally, titled Coming Undone, the song was written by Korn for the hypere-industrial The Matrix soundtrack. When Dem Franchize Boyz did a mash-up of it with their track Lean Wit It, Rock Wit It, it gave birth to Coming Undone Wit It.
Produced by hip-hop heavyweight Jermaine Dupri and Scott Spock from The Matrix’s production team, this is the only Franchize Boyz song I have listened to on my own merit, and pray that it’s the last.
“Rock and crunk, they the same thing,” Franchize Boyz’s Apollo said at the time. “It’s just two different names for it.”
“It’s all energy,” Davis added. “Crunk music’s like heavy hip-hop, so it mixes right. It’s perfect.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDMsCjGKlN4
Fight The Power ft. Xzibit
Probably the most interesting of all of Korn’s rap collaborations for better or worse, the band taking one of the most politically charged tracks ever released by seminal posse Public Enemy.
The original version was also a theme in Spike Lee‘s classic, yet controversial 1989 film Do The Right Thing, making it seem almost taboo for a bunch of white guys from Cali to help cover it.
All political elements aside though, the combination of Korn and Xzibit somehow kind of works on a purely sonic level, X’s idiosyncratic gruff and gritty delivery blending perfectly with hard-hitting Korn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoxleOCgAQU
Fuck Dying – Ice Cube ft. Korn
Topping the list is another collaboration between Korn and Cube, this time with the former playing the role of featured artists on the fiery Fuck Dying.
The track comes from Ice Cube’s War & Peace Vol. 1 album. It is a record that emanates dark, demonic vibes throughout, and Korn’s presence brought it to a whole new level, ramping the intensity up until it infinitely more palpable than every other track. An absolutely perfect mesh, both Korn and Ice Cube deliver peak performances here.
Hip-hop purists probably appreciate Fuck Dying more given that it’s a metal band guesting on a rapper’s track instead of a rapper trying to fit in with a metal band. Korn more than hold their own in Ice Cube’s domain and it’s a shame they didn’t collaborate more while they were still producing on a consistent basis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqtgsmkO1U4
Dishonourable Mentions
While Korn’s history of collaboration with hip-hop artists is largely quite good, it would be disingenuous to suggest that they weren’t guilty of a couple of stinkers along the way:
Wake Up – The Notorious B.I.G. ft. Korn
An awful mash-up of Korn’s Wake Up and Biggie Small’s If I Should Die Before I Wake. To its credit, the majority of the posthumous duets album it was featured on was pure trash and near exploitative at worst but this one felt particularly egregious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSyfudsYNcM
I don’t know who let this one slide on an almost perfect track record for Q-Tip but I sure hope they’re now fired.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kwg2eGNHBM
Overall though, rap and rock collaborations are something I hope we hear more and more of as hip-hop becomes even more mainstream in the 21st century and resultantly blends easier with other genres (though metal bands like Korn are unicorns in this age). Rumoured collaborations between Chance The Rapper and Death Cab For Cutie seem like they might be great on paper, but I much prefer my rap/rock crossover to bristle with the same intensity and fire that Korn and Ice Cube once brought.
Image: Spin
Aesop Rock turns 40 years old today, and Kanye West turns 39 on Thursday. Pusha T turned 39 last month, too. They’ve all released music this year. All of it has been incredible; fresh, real, lauded by fans across the globe.
Rappers, much like pop and certainly electronic artists, are seemingly getting younger every day, with many emerging artists too young to legally drink in many countries. Vic Mensa has the year “1993” tattooed across his stomach, while many of his contemporaries like Vince Staples, Chance the Rapper, Earl Sweatshirt, Rae Sremmurd, Raury, Casey Veggies, Joey Badass, Little Simz, Bishop Nehru and plenty more are the same age or younger. Hip-hop has always been youth-focused, both from the artist and audience’s perspective – but nowadays that’s changing.
Vic Mensa, 22. Image: Clash
It’s interesting to see the direction hip-hop goes in when rappers age. Almost every rapper started out as young teens, and those emerging into mainstream fame are usually around 18-20. However, it’s the kind of music which typically has to change with age; people at 40 are different to who they are at 20. Like with anything else, if they acted or spoke in the same way, it would feel stale, desperate, and, well, old.
Today there are so many older rappers who are just as fiery, electrifying and relevant as ever. Although his latest album was admittedly sub par, at 46 years old, Jay Z‘s two very recent features on tracks from Pusha T (39) and Fat Joe (45) and Remy Ma (36) are his best in years. At 51, Dr Dre‘s Compton was a masterpiece, while Run The Jewels (both 40) have released two of the most important albums of the past decade – with a third undoubtedly on the way soon, to give a handful of examples.
It’s interesting and kind of weird that forty seems to be such a big deal for many rappers, although I suppose the same can be said for anyone, and that it’s just more noticeable in hip-hop, where your musical output is often very specifically grounded in who you are at that time in your life. Like I said, rappers can’t spend twenty or thirty years rapping about the same shit. Not only is this boring on a musical level, but it becomes disingenuous and false.
In an interview on his 40th birthday, Nas described it as “incredible.” “I was always this dude,” he responded to a question about what’s changed. “When you’re young and you on fire, there’s nothing like that feeling. Where I’m at now is a more relaxed place, but I think it’s still in me when I need to get crazy.” He went on to say that it wasn’t so much that his music is more cautious or reserved, but that, “The speed changes. You have to adjust your life, you got new things in your life, you become more of a businessman, you become a father, that matters, that weighs in.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=210&v=MnnZk86jme8
Similarly, 50 Cent addressed the big day last year in an interview with Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel noted that his music had changed, to which 50 replied, “I gotta work on it. Sometimes when I write things, it’s where I’m at right now. And it’s like, ‘no, that makes sense, take that out.’ You can’t have maturity in your music.” This is an incredibly interesting, and rather wise comment coming from someone like 50 and the type of rap he’s put out.
Rappers often use age as a way to reflect, a la Jay and Push on the fantastic new single Drug Dealers Anonymous. Many others shift their focus to other areas, like film, the recording industry, labels and more, like Jay Z, Ice Cube, Puffy, Eminem and Dr Dre. Others collaborate with younger artists, not necessarily within hip-hop, in a way that keeps their output new and exciting – MF DOOM‘s 45 and he just dropped one of the coolest verses this year on the new Avalanches track, while Raekwon (46) fits perfectly on Flume‘s new album, more than twice the age of the other two rappers featured, Mensa and Staples, both 22.
But what about the rappers who have found themselves in a renaissance at that age? How do you explain it in a world where the young are the most powerful? Or, more importantly, why does it need to be explained?
It’s remarkable that in a world so heavily populated by teenagers, older rappers can come out and not only produce phenomenal new, incensed, powerful music, but receive the praise and attention they deserve.
Pitchfork set the scene well in a 2014 feature on Run The Jewels: “It’s October 2014 and, in the upside-down free-for-all that is modern popular music, one of the hottest hip-hop duos in the United States is made up of a pair of 39-year-olds who’ve banked off interstitial cartoon music for a rare late-period career renaissance.” Around the same time, El told Rolling Stone that “There’s really no fucking way that you’d ever think, ‘I’m gonna make my best friend at 35,” a statement which could no doubt be repeated for music.
When Aesop Rock rock was asked to describe his new album to The Source, he had this to say: “The Impossible Kid is me closing in on 40 and just going over it all. It feels sorta reflective in the sense of going through some childhood memories, some family stuff, some friend stuff, some music stuff, some moments of being baffled by the youth of today, and just coping with getting older.
“I kinda feel like turning 40 is a very specific thing in our society. It somehow holds more weight than any other age, even though in some ways it’s pretty arbitrary. For whatever reason, it’s the age that we are officially old. Maybe because if we’re lucky, it’s the halfway point. In your 30s, you can kinda still pretend to be young, but there’s not much pretending at 40. It’s the age that looms more than any other. So yeah, this is the sound of me sliding into 40.”
The point of this is just to note that the ‘ageing rapper’ is no longer considered a death sentence. Hip-hop has traditionally focused heavily on youth, in terms of artists, subject matter and intended audience – but none of this is necessarily true today.
50 Cent said there cannot be maturity in music, and while this makes sense for him and his music personally, as a whole I disagree; it just depends on context. Growing up doesn’t necessarily make them softer or more boring or anything like that – you can hardly say Pusha T or Dr Dre are making the hip-hop equivalent of dad rock – it’s just that the game changes, as Nas said. You grow, you have a family, a business, different ambitions and priorities. Your life changes, so your music changes. Not for better or worse; it just grows, like you.
Image: PMCaregivers
It was announced last year that Erykah Badu would be starring in a film called The Land, set to be executive produced by Nas. The first trailer for the film has dropped, and it comes with the announcement that music will be done by some pretty big names. Soundtrack casting includes Kanye West, Pusha T, Jeremih, Badu, French Montana, Nosaj Thing and more. The music will also be released on the soundtrack, set to be produced by Nas himself, which will arrive on the 29th of July on Mass Appeal Records.
The Land is directed by Steven Caple Jr, who has previously directed Class and A Different Tree. And no, I haven’t heard of them either. This film focusses on four Cleveland teenagers who dream of a career in professional skateboarding, but get caught up in a drug operation. Having already been previewed at Sundance, it will be released to the wider world the same day as the soundtrack, July 29th, in theatres and video-on-demand services.
As well as Badu, the film will feature Michael K. Williams, previously seen in Boardwalk Empire and The Wire, both of which are excellent. Also appearing will be Cleveland rapper Machine Gun Kelly.
Watch the trailer below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyUxInyI8as
Image: Pitchfork
French Montana has an exciting year ahead after inking a deal with Sean Combs’ Bad Boy Entertainment and Epic Records yesterday. Montana released a statement stating, “Love the respect and appreciation that LA Reid and his team have for music. I think it’s rare to find that in the industry today. Being able to start this chapter at Epic with my Bad Boy family is a blessing. Puff and Harve have been like big brothers to me and there’s nothing better than making music with the people you love.”
To commemorate the deal, Montana’s released the visuals for the Kanye West and Nas-featuring Figure It Out. Taken from his mixtape of a few months ago, Wave Gods (read our review here), the track finds the three rapping about failed relationships and love, not that you’d know by the excessive visuals.
Shot in the desert amongst a graveyard of old planes, the three hang on plane wings and strut about as dirt bikes blaze around in the background. You could almost call it a commercial with the amount of product placement. The camera often lingers on shots of the energy drink Hype and Puffy’s Cîroc vodka, while West’s decked out in new Yeezy gear. Commercialism never looked better.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNUd4kZqjyA]
Image: Blahblahblahscience
Well this was a pleasant surprise appearance. During The Weeknd‘s set at The Met Gala, a pretty special guest appeared; Nas. It was halfway through the performance of the Canadian singer’s 2015 hit Tell Your Friends that Nas entered from backstage, wearing what appeared to be a bathrobe. But hey, people have worn weirder things to The Met Gala:
Kanye, why? (Image: Getty Images)
Nas rapped a verse in what appeared to be an extremely rare remix of last year’s track. And ultimately, it was really good! The verse was a strong effort from the Brooklyn-born rapper, and The Weeknd’s voice was incredible as always.
It was a pretty big deal for The Weeknd to be headlining the ball, with the amount of huge-name artists there, including Lady Gaga, Kanye West (see above), Beyoncé (queeeeeeeen) and Taylor Swift. And he did a really good job, steadily pumping out his biggest hits with ease.
That said, no one will be happier with this performance than fans of juxtaposition. Honestly, the first time I watched the video was through tears of laughter. Seeing a very smartly dressed guy with ridiculous pineapple hair croon the words “Give me head all night/I come four times” to a room full of the world’s biggest celebrity names will always be hilarious, no matter the context. C’mon guys, you can’t make this shit up.
Images: Getty Images/Bluntiq
From SXSW we first got whiff of the unreleased album The Diary. It was first teased with The Sickness, the unheard collaboration first recorded in 2001 with super duo J Dilla and Madlib (Jaylib), but now we have an alternate version- this time with Nas. Since the release of the long awaited and almost lost album, we now have the first video from the posthumous Dilla project for The Sickness. Directed by Ruffmercy (Lie Cheat Steal, Old English), the clip demonstrates this same typographical, drawn, collage theme which works so well. Images of Jay collate across the clip along with Nas, making you feel as if he never left.
Right from the jump you get hit with Madlib’s powerful production alongside Jay’s legendary emceeing style, sounding like a cut straight off Champion Sound. Nas’ lyrics definitely don’t disappoint either, the Queens veteran fits seamlessly and proves he hasn’t lost any of his finesse from his early days in the game.
Jay Dee’s The Diary album made its debut earlier this month with a plethra of features including Snoop Dogg, Bilal, Frank and Dank as well as producers Pete Rock, Hi-Tek and the previously mentioned Madlib. Read our full review on J Dilla’s The Diary here
Check out the video below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxYP8Ed3JhE
Image: Rappcats