Nas infiltrated J. Cole’s life at an early age and made him want to be a rapper. Once he became a star, the North Carolinian paid tribute to his idol and tried to make him proud.
Illmatic is an album that matters to every hip-hop fanatic, and if you haven’t got it in your record collection, then you need to give your head a wobble. When it was released, Cole was too young to understand Nas’s debut, but as soon as he started to get obsessed with music, it had a life-changing impact on him.
“When this album dropped I had to be nine, so I give myself a pass for missing out on this at first,” the rapper told Complex a few years ago.
He added: “It wasn’t until my cousin forced me to listen to ‘I Gave You Power’ off of It Was Written that I realised Nas was one of the greatest, and I had some homework to do! Illmatic is one of those albums that demonstrates the highest level of lyricism possible.”
However, the relationship between the two has been a difficult one. When Cole was starting out with his career, all he wanted to do was impress his hero, and he was devastated to hear that Nas hated his song ‘Work Out’, which led to him writing ‘Let Nas Down’.
“That song is just special. It’s a long story that has to do with how I came up in the game,” Cole explained about ‘Work Out’. He was tired of releasing mixtapes and “waiting around for an album release date from the label.”
“Fast forward: It’s two years [later] and I still don’t have an album release date,” he continued. “But I made this song … ‘Work Out.’ I was excited that I had made something that I felt was a guaranteed smash. So I finally put out the single and it was the worst response I’ve ever gotten on any song I’ve put out.”
Producer No I.D. was working with Nas at the time and frankly told him their thoughts on the song. Cole added: “Why did y’all put out that song? [No I.D.] says, ‘I’m gonna tell you the truth. I was in the studio with Nas and we were talking about you, like, why’d he put out that song? Doesn’t he know he’s the one and that he doesn’t have to do that?’
“I was getting mad defensive because they don’t know what I had to go through. But I was hurt on the inside because I really idolise Nas. Eventually ‘Work Out’ became a massive record,” continues Cole. “But at the time it was hurtful. So I really vented on [‘Let Nas Down’].”
Although Nas never shared his thoughts on ‘Let Nas Down’, in 2016, he named Cole as one of his favourite modern rappers, and he finally gave the young upstart his seal of approval, which were the words that the artist has always wanted to hear.
