Nas’ biggest issue, according to KRS-One
The legendary Bronx rapper KRS-One doesn’t just see himself as a musician—he’s an educator.
He believes that hip-hop bears the potential to guide people along a positive path in life, but that not every person within the scene sufficiently plays their part. One who does, though, is Nas. Nas is a potential hip-hop leader, according to KRS-One, but he is far from perfect.
KRS-One’s idea of what constitutes hip-hop culture has a religious bent to it, as made clear by his 600-page Gospel of Hip-Hop book that was published in 2009.
“I respect the Christianity, the Islam, the Judaism but their time is up,” KRS controversially once told AllHipHop, speaking of his book. “I don’t have to go through any religion [or] train of thought. I can approach God directly myself.”
KRS-One understands hip-hop in divine terms, and he sees his role within it as very important. “No one is capable of taking hip-hop to where I see it going,” he told Vibe in 2005. “I have a divine mission. I have come out of the universe to get this shit together. But for now I have to set up for the true messiah to come. I’m more like John the Baptist. I’m proclaiming the word.”
As for who this “true messiah” might be, KRS-One, speaking in 2005, did not know for sure. But there was a candidate. “The closest is Nas,” he said. “I’m training Nas to be that leader.”
It seems that KRS felt Nas could become hip-hop’s “true messiah,” but, even so, he was flawed. “Oh, Nas is ‘the one,’” he said. “But you want to talk about someone caught between the CEO world and the movement—Nas has issues.”
KRS-One’s problem with Nas, it seems from his remarks to Vibe, revolve around his reluctance to give a speech at NASA. KRS, in his capacity as an educator, has been known to deliver lectures about hip-hop over the years, and it appears that he wanted Nas to do the same at NASA. But he was reluctant to do so.
“When I asked him, ‘Nas I want you to speak at NASA,’ he hung up the phone on me,” KRS lamented. “He couldn’t take it. He called me back an hour later saying, ‘Yo, man. I’m sorry man. Yo, man. Yo, you just too much man. I had to take a breather.’”
KRS was disappointed with that. “I said, ‘Stop being afraid. It’s just a building. You go and you talk and you leave,’” he told Vibe. “But he wants the training. He’s interested in the training and he’s not afraid. It’s just I’m a crazy guy.”