The rapper Nas described as “a threat because he’s white”
Nas once defended Eminem amid his fast-rising success while beefing with Benzino, who was co-owner of The Source.
When the magazine criticised Em for being white, claiming he represented “a corruptive cycle that promotes the blatant theft of a culture from the community that created it,” XXL spoke to several artists, including Nas, to provide their thoughts on the matter.
The Queensbridge rapper stated that, although he didn’t personally see him as a threat, Eminem was a concern to other rappers in the industry regarding his talent and the amount of attention he was getting over other artists. He also put him in the same conversation as Michael Jackson in terms of album sales.
“First of all, I fear no man, so I don’t see him as a threat,” Nas began. “All of this is just beautiful hype for Eminem’s new album. When his new shit drops, he’s gonna sell like Thriller. People being mad at him is only gonna add fuel to his fire and make him greater. He’s a threat because he’s white, but that’s the way the world works.”
Nas stated that Eminem was uniting black and white people and believed his success would only grow the genre. “He’s white, and he knows it,” he said. “And the beauty of it is that he puts it in his music all the time. I love what Eminem is doing for hip-hop and for our young people of America. He brings together white and black people and he does it while representing rap music in its truest form.”
He continued, “The larger he gets, the larger hip-hop gets, no matter what anybody says. This dude lives, breathes, eats and shits hip-hop. Of course, there is a bad side to this, that black artists could suffer, but that should only make them step up their game. It’s not an excuse. If you’re talented, then put your muthafuckin’ game down.”
Jay-Z also commented on the topic, believing the colour of his skin had something to do with his success but that he could hold his own. “In my opinion, this is not an issue,” he said. “I mean, he can rhyme. The guy’s got skills. If he didn’t have skills, I’d say the guy’s stealing from under the table, but he’s good to go. There’s no denying that he can rhyme. I’m sure his race has something to do with the numbers that he does, but there’s just no denying his talent.”
The respect goes both ways, with Eminem once revealing he knows all the words to Nas’ debut album Illmatic. “I remember The Source gave Illmatic five mics,” he told The New York Times. “I already knew I liked Nas from ‘Live at the Barbeque’ with Main Source, because his verse on that is one of the most classic verses in hip-hop of all time. But I was, like, ‘Five mics, though? Let me see what this is.’
“And when I put it on, ‘And be prosperous/ Though we live dangerous/ Cops could just arrest me/ Blamin’ us/ We’re held like hostages’ – he was going in and outside of the rhyme scheme, internal rhymes. That album had me in a slump, too. I know the album front to back.”
Nas rapped with Eminem for the first time in 2021 on ‘EPMD 2’, which appeared on his King’s Disease II album. However, they previously crossed paths in 2002, with Em producing ‘The Cross’ from his God’s Son album.