Former member of G-Unit Tony Yayo is one of hip-hop’s underappreciated talents. Born and raised in the South Jamaica neighbourhood of Queens, Yayo has been rapping alongside 50 Cent since the mid-1990s.
However, he hasn’t just worked with Fifty, the lyricist (real name Marvin Bernard) has worked with a number of artists, including his Queens counterpart Nas. Furthermore, he has even toured with the Illmatic creator. However, in an interview with DJ Vlad with Vlad TV, the ‘Bullets Whistle’ rhymer admitted that was shocked by Nas’ behaviour on tour.
In 1999, Nas (real name Nasir Jones) asked G-Unit to accompany him on the promo tour for his 1999 album Nastradamus. However, Jones didn’t behave the way Yayo had expected. Instead of smoking weed, drinking cognac and turning up with him, Yayo saw the rap legend constantly buried deep in books.
Telling DJ Vlad what he thought touring with Nas would be like, Bernard admitted, “I thought it was going to be a lot of weed smoking, like bitches on the bus, but Nas was reading books and shit. I’m going up for Illmatic, ‘I’m an addict for sneakers, 20’s of Buddha and bitches with beepers,’ so I thought we was going to be smoking hella weed and bitches going to be running through that shit!”
However, Bernard expressed that Nas wasn’t too serious whilst reading, detailing, “But he was kind of like a laid-back cat reading books and shit, so I was just like, ‘That’s Nas, this muthafucka is reading books and shit.’ [He] really wasn’t smoking too much weed on the bus that was more of Jungle and them thing, but Nas is one of them smart muthafuckas, and I see how he come with the lines.”
Yayo’s G-Unit counterpart, 50 Cent, has also spoken about touring with Nas and praised him in an interview with MTV, revealing, “Nas was the first person to do something for nothing for me.”
Fifty continued, “He allowed me to go on his promo tour for Nastradamus. He said, ‘The way you came out with that record [‘How to Rob’], it felt like when I came out [with Illmatic].’ He wanted me to be out there. Me and Tony Yayo, we went on that promo tour. At that point, me and Nas was cool.”
You can listen to Tony Yayo speaking about Nas’ 199 tour in the video below.
