Nas reveals the legendary MCs Jay-Z insisted were “not lyricists”
Jay-Z and Nas were once enemies and lyrical foes both vying to be the best lyricist in New York. However, since their 2001 battle which saw Nas produce the unparalleled diss track ‘Ether’, the two have become cordial and good friends.
That said, during the 1990s, Nas and Jay-Z weren’t the only young lyrical dynamos in New York. DMX began to emerge as a star during the decade and of course Jay’s close friend Biggie Smalls was dominating the charts as one of the most popular MCs in the world.
In 2021, an unreleased Nas song dissing 2Pac was found and many were interested in hearing what it had to say. Although it didn’t pack much punch, a 2001 interview with Nas written by FELON magazine was also unearthed which was an interesting read to day the leats.
2001 was the year that saw Jay and Nas go head to head, exchange brutal diss tracks and create a lyrical bloodbath. As such during his interview with FELON, the Illmatic creator dished some previously unknown dirt on Jay-Z and spoke about some of the disrespectful comments he had made about hip-hop legends.
Nas began, “You know what? I want to talk about this sh*t with Jay-Z— FELON is a street magazine, and I f*cks with the street magazines. It’s only right that I keep it real with the streets.”
With a level of comfortablity he proceeded to allege that during a party thrown by Steve Stouteat the turn of the millennium, Hov had said that he was a superior emcee to Biggie Smalls and had rudeely asserted that DMX and 2Pac only appealed to “starving street ni**as.”
Recalling the party, the ‘Black Girl Lost’ rhymer stated, “We were kickin’ it and he told me that he’s better than Biggie now! I looked at him like he was crazy.” According to Nas, after this he then began dissing his own Roc-a-Fella signees, adding, “Then, he started telling me Memphis Bleek was a fan and that I shouldn’t go at him. He predicted that Beanie Sigel would never sell more than 600,000 copies.”
However, Nas then made an allegation so grave that it enraged him, unveiling, “Then, he really got crazy. He said that 2Pac and DMX were not lyricists—they just had the hungry, starving street niggas coppin’ their shit—but me and him had all the money niggas buying ours. I told him that I disagreed with him—that 2Pac was the greatest ever—period, and that DMX really brought that street shit back into the game.”
Even in 2001, Nas didn’t know what Jay’s issue with him was, but he did know that he needed to “get over it”, telling FELON, “I don’t know—I don’t know if it’s over a bitch, I don’t know if it’s over the joint I didn’t do with him, I don’t know if he’s trying to show me ‘I told you so’—meaning that he would be as successful or more successful as me—and if it’s that, it shouldn’t be because I never told him that he wouldn’t or that he couldn’t. All I know is that something is really bothering him and he needs to address it, release it, and get over it.”
The late DMX eventually caught wind of Hov’s comments, which exacerbated X’s disdain for the Brooklyn rapper. However, the two never ended up in an all-out war like Nas and Jay, which continues to captivate the public even 23 years later.