“It’s been great. I remember being a kid and hearing these rap songs and watching the break-dance thing happen and all of that, and all the way to where it became this huge, huge industry. It’s great that I saw it develop into what it is today—and you can still remember what it was,” he says via Zoom from Los Angeles, nearly 3,000 miles and 29 years removed from Illmatic, the critically acclaimed 1994 album that would eventually be inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry and kick-start a career that has resulted in a Grammy Award, film roles, his own investment firm, and a recurring place in the GOAT MC list.
To celebrate the anniversary, the artist, born Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones, partnered with Hennessy to design a limited-edition bottle symbolic of the lifestyle, culture, and influence of hip-hop–a somewhat natural collaboration as these things go, given his repeated name-checking of the cognac.
“On my first album, I talked about Hennessy before the first song even came on. I’m having a conversation, like, ‘Pass the Hennessy.’ To think about that, my journey and hip-hop’s journey, this is a time, this is a year to celebrate—you know, when you’re mature enough and you’re at the legal age to indulge and celebrate in the way I like to celebrate,” he says. “You can get with what I’m doing. You can see the journey that I had. ”
Last month, Nas spoke with Vanity Fair about making his debut in the ’90s, being back in the studio during a long-awaited creative growth spurt, and getting existential.
Vanity Fair: Illmatic came out when you were 20. Looking back now, what were your wildest dreams when you were putting out that record?
Nas: I just wanted it to be heard. I just wanted it to have some respect from the people that I grew up listening to or open up a whole new lane for artists my age, to be a new voice.
Do you ever listen to that album and are you still able to identify with that 20-year-old today, despite all of the other albums, the whole life that you've lived? Do you still relate to him?
I don't listen to it, but if somebody's playing it or it does come up, I do think about what life is like and it's a whole different day today. And it's like the nineties was a whole different animal and yeah, it takes me back.
What do you think the biggest difference in your creative process is today compared to then considering you’ve been in the game such a long time, you have so many albums under your belt, you have awards, you have businesses.
I don't think about any of those things. I'm still like the MC that wants to make something that people can feel. I wanna express what I'm feeling and make that connection inside the studio so that it has this meaning and draws a picture of where my head's at today. Hopefully people can, some people, can relate to it, but back then it was just let's make some noise so people know who I am. Now that they know, it's a whole different bunch of ideas that naturally an older guy would try to do. That still fits into my style. My signature style.
Do you feel any pressure being so representative of hip-hop? Not to do a pun on King's Disease [the trilogy of albums released by Nas between 2020 – 2022], but it's a heavy crown to wear to be emblematic of this genre that's permeated culture worldwide.
I think I share that with a lot of different artists and I think we all feel like, be careful what you ask for. It's like you'll get it and then what do you do with it, right? I say that a lot because that's what you're dealing with. That's what I deal with. And I go, well, I'm here now. There's no turning back. So I might as well make use of this time in the best way possible.
Do you ever think about your legacy or what you'd like it to be? Or do you feel that you're very much present at all times?
I do, but when you think you are in control … there's a God, and I feel like whatever you think you’re planning to do, something else happens altogether or just life comes at you fast. So you can want a legacy to be a certain way, but there's another plan for you. I think a little bit about legacy, but also just let things happen cause they wind up turning out different than what I thought and most of the time better than I could ever plan.
Did you ever think you would be involved in so many different avenues in your career?
Yes. In the beginning I was just, again, just trying to get into the game but I had these ideas that if I would get anywhere in the game, that there would be a lot of opportunities to take advantage of. A lot of the ideas I had when I was young, I'm kind of living them out now. So there was a point where I felt like the music could play the back, and then put different things to the front and then I started to move in that direction.
Are you someone who feels like they're ever satisfied? Or are you someone who is going to be working until their last day?
Every time I want to take off I get bored. And if I take too much time off, I need to keep working. I need to feel like this is life and this is what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to be seeing what could happen next, seeing what we can produce that would help the world or help the community or help ourselves grow higher. It's a natural way of being. I can't stop. I might take a break very soon. I need a break, it's been years since I had a real break.
Putting out three consecutive records, King's Disease (2020), King's Disease II (2021), King's Disease III (2022), in three years was something else. Do you think that's a style you'd like to work in again?
Absolutely. I'm recording now, so we'll see what happens. I feel really good about that and I don't wanna stop it once it's flowing the way it's flowing. It feels very free and I just wanna see what happens as I stick to it. And I've been sticking to it and it's been my whole life now. Like, if I’m recording, I don't do anything else really. It hasn't been this way for me for probably 20 years. I think that's what I think today, maybe tomorrow I think about, well, actually accurately seven years, or since I've been really in the studio, but when it comes in my head now, it's been that long—20 years.
So you feel like you’re in a moment of creative growth.
I’m in one of these creative growth spurts. It’s something that I'm really excited about and it surprises me – but I'm not too, too surprised because I was also waiting for the day that I felt like this again, and I knew it would come.
Sometimes it feels like if you can't get the words on paper, you're done forever. It's nice to hear that the wheels are always turning, even if you're not constantly producing.
Yeah! Especially when I’m such a fan of music, I wanna be the best, I wanna contribute as much as I can when I'm feeling that way. I'm trying to contribute to the whole game and just hoping that somebody would like it.
Nas performs on stage at The OVO Hydro on June 12, 2023 in Glasgow, Scotland.
ROBERTO RICCIUTIDo you feel like you have external competitors still? Or do you feel like you're just competing with yourself?
It's mostly competing with myself. I try to compete externally, but it doesn't last long because I lose focus of that because I'm already working on me. So I have to work on me, and that takes up all that time.
Today, at 49 years old on the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, what are your wildest dreams now?
Science, medicine, food. Best food for us, best medicine for us, best understanding of science is what I wanna figure out. Like in general for people, where is this going? Science, it talks about shortages of food. Ice Age moments, other galaxies, our atmosphere, all of those things. How do we protect humanity?
You're thinking about the future long after you're gone?
Yeah. This is an old planet, it’s been through a lot. We can take a lot of that for granted. This time and space that we’re in, politics and all of these things … I’m worried about us.
I’m hoping we can kind of square things away and make it better for the younger kids.
That's our goal. And to at least get it started. So if they ever need references, they need to research people before them and what their ideas was, at least we could leave them something. And they don’t go, “What was up with the generation before us? They didn't even try.” I mean there's a lot of people that can research … but we all have to play a part in it.
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