Nas – Got Ur Self A Gun

Born in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, on September 14, 1973, Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones, also known as Nas (previously Nasty Nas and Escobar), is a well-known American hip-hop artist. His father is jazz musician Olu Dara, and he grew up in the notorious Queensbridge housing projects. Before assuming his more well-known alias of Nasty Nas, Nasir, a rapper, went by the moniker Kid Wave when he was a youngster, according to Nasty Songfacts. Jones was known as Nas by the time he launched his historic solo debut album Illmatic in 1994.

Illmatic is regarded as one of the best rap albums of all time and was a critically acclaimed bestseller. He wed R&B singer Kelis in 2005; the two had a kid together. On April 29, 2009, Kelis filed for divorce. Nas was also a member of the one-album hip-hop ensemble The Firm.

Nas took a more commercial path in the years after Illmatic’s release, which led to greater popularity but diminished artistic credibility in the eyes of critics and hip-hop aficionados. Moreover, Nas’ growing commercial success coincided with stylistic shifts that sparked claims that he was “selling out.” Still, the album Stillmatic is frequently acknowledged for having helped Nas regain his reputation with fans. Nas has maintained a prominent position in the hip-hop scene since Stillmatic’s popularity and has pursued a distinctively innovative and individual style. Even though Nas’s most popular work now is very different from his previous work, this has made him one of the most well-liked and regarded rappers of the modern era.

1973–1992: Early life and professional years

Nas was the older of the two children born to Olu Dara and Fannie Ann Jones in Brooklyn, New York; his younger brother, Jabari, was born in the Congo and went by the moniker “Jungle.” Before relocating to Queensbridge, the biggest public housing complex in the country, the family lived in Brooklyn for a while. When Nas was thirteen years old in 1986, Olu Dara abandoned the family, leaving Ann Jones to raise her two boys by herself. In the seventh grade, Nas left school and started peddling narcotics on the streets of New York. He educated himself by reading about the Bible, the Qur’an, the Five Percent Nation, and African culture and civilization. While recording recordings that played on his neighborhood radio station, he also researched the history of hip hop music. When Nas was three years old, he played his father’s trumpet on the front step of their Brooklyn house, demonstrating his desire to be both an instrumentalist and a comic book artist. Nas started writing short tales soon after his parents divorced and got more involved in hip-hop culture.

He had decided to become a rapper by the time he was a preteen, and as a teenager, he hired Willie “Ill Will” Graham, his upstairs neighbor and best friend, to be his DJ. Nas used to go by the moniker Kid Wave before assuming the more well-known identity Nasty Nas. Graham and Nas soon became friends with Flushing Queens resident and hip-hop producer Large Professor, who introduced Nas to his group, Main Source. With a verse on “Live at the BBQ” from Main Source’s album Breaking Atoms, Nas debuted on record in 1991. Nas had a lot of hype in the underground culture, but the rapper wasn’t signed to a record deal and was turned down by major labels. Although Graham and Nas kept working together, their collaboration came to an abrupt end on May 23, 1992, when Graham was shot and killed in Queensbridge by an assailant.

1992–1995: Illmatic’s recording and release

MC Serch of 3rd Bass met Nas in the middle of 1992. That same year, he signed on as his manager and got Nas a record deal with Columbia Records. On the track “Halftime” from Serch’s soundtrack for the movie Zebrahead, Nas made his solo debut. The single boosted Nas’s already considerable buzz, and when MC Serch’s solo album drops later this year, Nas’ remarkable cameo on “Back To The Grill” will only heighten the excitement around his highly anticipated album. Regarded as the next Rakim, his ability to rhyme garnered a great deal of attention from the hip-hop scene. Many were worried, though, that Columbia, a well-known label, would attempt to water down his New York-based sound.

Nas’s debut album, Illmatic, was eventually published in 1994. Illmatic, a critically praised and universally recognized as one of the best rap albums ever made, with production from multiple producers and lyrics that depicted amazing visual imagery. Large Professor, Pete Rock, Q-Tip (of A Tribe Called Quest), DJ Premier, and Nas’ friend AZ made guest appearances on the album “Life’s a Bitch.” Critics praised Illmatic right away, calling it a masterpiece and still holding it in high regard as one of the greatest hip-hop albums ever. “NY State of Mind” (produced by Premier), “The World Is Yours” (produced by Pete Rock), “One Love” (produced by Q-Tip), and “It Ain’t Hard To Tell” (produced by Large Professor and featuring a sample of Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature”) were among the album’s standout tracks. However, the record sales fell short of projections, partly because of widespread bootlegging.

After Illmatic, Nas had an appearance on AZ’s Doe Or Die album and worked with Mobb Deep, his Queensbridge friends, on their album The Infamous. During this time, Nas’ verse on “Verbal Intercourse” from Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx was one noteworthy accomplishment. Nas was the first member outside of the Wu-Tang Clan to be featured on one of the group’s solo albums, therefore after this performance, he was awarded a Source Quotable.

From the time it was written to the firm, 1996–1998

Columbia started to put pressure on Nas to focus on more mainstream subjects, a la The Notorious B.I.G., a rapper who rose to fame by putting out street hits that were nonetheless appealing to mainstream listeners. In order to prepare for his second album, It Was Written, Nas traded management MC Serch for Steve Stoute, purposefully aiming for a crossover-oriented sound. The summer of 1996 saw the release of It Was Written, which was mostly produced by Poke and Tone of Trackmasters Entertainment. The Fugees’ Lauryn Hill and R. Kelly featured on the remix of “Street Dreams,” which became an instant hit, were the two singles. With the help of lavish music videos helmed by Hype Williams, Nas became well-known in the mainstream hip-hop scene. The CD also featured two noteworthy tracks: “The Message” and “I Gave You Power,” which narrates a tale from the viewpoint of a pistol. Along with Nas, AZ, Foxy Brown, and Cormega making their supergroup premiere, The Firm also made their debut on It Was Written. The album also debuted “Nas Escobar,” a Mafioso-inspired figure created by Nas that had a lifestyle more akin to Scarface or Casino. Illmatic, on the other hand, was more about Nas’ existence as a youngster in the projects, working hard and consuming drugs, despite having multiple references to Tony Montana and the Al Pacino musical hit.

The Firm started recording their debut album after signing to Dr. Dre’s Aftermath Entertainment label. Steve Stoute, who had tried in vain to get Cormega to sign a contract with his management company, fired Cormega from the group halfway through the album’s recording. As a result, Cormega emerged as one of Nas’ most outspoken rivals, putting out several underground hip-hop tracks criticizing Nas, Stoute, and Nature, Cormega’s replacement in The Firm. After The Firm’s The Album was eventually published in 1997 to mediocre reviews and sales, the supergroup members parted ways.

Around this time, Nas had no further affiliation with the Willie Esco urban clothing line other than serving as its spokesperson. In 2000, he ceased endorsing Willie Esco because he was unhappy with the way the business was run. In the same year, Nas co-wrote and starred in Belly, a 1998 feature film directed by Hype Williams and starring T-Boz of TLC, DMX, and Taral Hicks.

1998–2000: Nastradamus, I Am

Nas started working on a double album called I Am…The Autobiography in 1998. He wanted it to be a compromise between the extremes of It Was Written and Illmatic. The album was finished in the beginning of 1999, and a music video for DJ Premier’s lead single, Nas Is Like, which used vocal samples from “It Ain’t Hard to Tell,” was recorded. But a large portion of the LP was leaked online in MP3 format, and Nas and Stoute soon recorded enough replacement tracks to make a single-disc release.

Nas’ detractors pointed to the second song from I Am, “Hate Me Now,” featuring Sean “Puffy” Combs (now known as “Diddy”), as an illustration of how the artist was shifting toward commercial themes. For the song, Hype Williams directed an allegorical video in which Nas and Puffy were crucified like Jesus. After the film was finished, Catholic Combs asked that the part of his crucifixion be removed. On the other hand, the uncut version of the “Hate Me Now” video appeared on MTV and debuted on TRL on April 15, 1999. Steve Stoute was allegedly attacked in his office by an enraged Combs and his bodyguards, who even purportedly struck him over the head with a champagne bottle at one point. Although Stoute filed charges, he and Combs reached an out-of-court settlement that June.

The stolen content from I Am was supposed to be released by Columbia under the name Nastradamus in the second half of 1999. However, at the eleventh hour, it was decided that Nas needed to record a completely new album. As a result, Nastradamus was hurried to meet the November release schedule. The album did yield a small hit, the Timbaland-produced “You Owe Me,” featuring R&B artist Ginuwine, despite the negative reviews the record received. The only I Am… pirated song to appear on Nastradamus was “Project Windows,” which starred Ronald Isley. Later, several of the other bootlegged songs appeared on The Lost Tapes, an underground Nas compilation album that Columbia issued in September 2002. Positive reviews and respectable sales were recorded for the set.

2000–2001: Stillmatic and the feud between Nas and Jay-Z

Nas and Jay-Z’s widely reported animosity started out as a battle between Memphis Bleek, Jay-Z’s protégé. The concept of Bleek’s song “Memphis Bleek Is,” from his debut album Coming of Age, was inspired by Nas’ song “Nas is Like.” The song “What You Think Of That,” which Bleek recorded with his mentor Jay-Z on the same album, with the refrain “I’m a ball ’til I fall/what you think of that?”. The title track of Nas’s second album, released in 1999, “Nastradamus,” included a reference to “What You Think Of That” as payback. “You wanna ball till you fall, I can help you with that/You want beef?,” the lyrics ask. Memphis Bleek took the reference to “Nastradamus” as a jab at Nas, and as a result, made fun of him on the lead single off his The Understanding LP, “My Mind Right.”

Nas and several other Queensbridge rappers, like as Mobb Deep, Nature, Littles, The Bravehearts (which included Nas’ younger brother Jungle among its members), and Cormega, who had momentarily made amends with Nas, were featured on the compilation album QB’s Finest. The legendary Queensbridge hip-hop artists Roxanne Shante, MC Shan, and Marley Marl all made cameo appearances on the album. The lead track “Da Bridge 2001,” which was inspired on Shan & Marl’s 1986 album “The Bridge,” had appearances by both Shan and Marley Marl. In “Da Bridge 2001,” Nas also responded to Memphis Bleek, criticizing Bleek, Damon Dash, Beanie Sigel, and Jay-Z among the other members of the Roc-A-Fella Records roster.

When Jay-Z debuted his song “Takeover” at the 2001 Hot 97 Summer Jam performance in New York City, he responded to Nas’ songs with a sarcastic onstage jab at the concert. Originally, the song was supposed to be a Mobb Deep diss, with a single lyric criticizing Nas towards the conclusion. Nas, however, recorded the underground track “Stillmatic Freestyle,” which featured a sample of Rakim and Eric B.’s “Paid in Full” beat, and took aim at Jay-Z and his Roc-A-Fella label. Jay-Z remade “Takeover” for his 2001 album The Blueprint. He devoted half of the song to criticizing Nas, saying that he had “…one hot album every ten year average” record (alluding to Illmatic), that his flow was poor, and that he had made up his hustler history.

In response, Nas released “Ether.” The song opens with gunshots and a recurrent, slowed-down sample of Tupac rapping “Fuck Jay-Z” (from Tupac’s “Fuck Friends”). In “Ether,” Nas accuses Jay-Z of brown-nosing Nas and other rappers in order to gain notoriety and of stealing (“biting”) lyrics from The Notorious B.I.G. Nas’s fifth studio album, Stillmatic, which was released in December 2001, featured Ether. Though not as successful commercially as Jay’s It Was Written and I Am, Stillmatic was still a critically acclaimed comeback record that peaked at #7 on the Billboard album charts and included the hits “Got Ur Self A…” and “One Mic.” Stillmatic went platinum while Jay’s The Blueprint was certified double-platinum.

In his freestyle “Supa Ugly,” Jay-Z addressed “Ether” and went into depth about his sex with Carmen Bryan, the mother of Nas’ daughter Destiny. Nas disregarded the song, saying that at the time of the affair, he was no longer with Bryan. However, in a recent interview, Hot 97, a radio station in New York, decided to settle the dispute by asking listeners to vote on “Ether” and “Supa Ugly.” Nas received 58% of the vote, while Jay-Z received 42%. The two rappers’ feud had finally come to an end in 2005, but there had been no hostility or bloodshed. “It’s bigger than ‘I Declare War,'” Jay-Z told the crowd during his I Declare War – Power House show. Come on, Esco!Following Nas’ onstage entrance, Jay-Z and Nas played “Dead Presidents,” a song that Jay-Z had copied from Nas’ “The World is Yours.”

From God’s Son to a Street Disciple and Beyond, 2002–Present

Nas’s album God’s Son was released in December of 2002. along with “Made You Look,” the lead single. Though rampant online bootlegging prevented the album from debuting higher than #18 on the Billboard rankings. His record was chosen the greatest hip-hop album of the year by Time Magazine. The Source gave it four microphones, while Vibe Magazine gave it four stars. In the spring and summer of 2003, Nas’ second single—the motivational “I Can,” which reworked parts of Beethoven’s “Fur Elise”—became his biggest hit to date, receiving a lot of radio airplay on top 40, urban, and rhythmic stations in addition to the MTV and VH1 music video networks. Several of the tracks on God’s Son are also in remembrance of Nas’ mother, who passed away from cancer in 2002. Nas had an appearance on the Korn song “Play Me” off the Take a Look in the Mirror LP in 2003.

On November 30, 2004, Nas released his seventh studio album, the highly regarded double-disc Street’s Disciple. “Thief’s Theme” and “Bridging the Gap,” which features his father Olu Dara on vocals, were the album’s first hits. “These are Our Heroes,” another song on the album, charges well-known athletes and actors—including Kobe Bryant, Lenny Henry, Tiger Woods, and Cuba Gooding, Jr.—of ignoring their cultural background and history in favor of white ideals. MTV and BET aired the music videos for “Bridging the Gap” and “Just A Moment” with varying degrees of airplay. Despite becoming platinum, the album’s commercial profile was not as high as that of the rapper’s earlier albums.

“We Major,” a song from Kanye West’s album Late Registration, features Nas. Although Jay-Z claimed to love the song, West was unable to convince him to record a vocal for the song’s final mix. He also had appearances on a number of other tracks, including “Death Anniversary” and “It Wasn’t You” (with Lauryn Hill), as well as Damian Marley’s “Road to Zion,” which also included The Game, a recent addition to the music video, expanding the audience for Nas’s raps, which are still becoming more and more well-liked. Furthermore, Kelis, an internationally renowned R&B singer who has achieved considerable success in the United States, was once married to Nas. After two years of courtship, the pair got married in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 8, 2005.

At this time, Nas revealed that Nasir, his upcoming album, would be fully self-produced and contain no other rappers. Later, he revealed that Nasdaq: Dow Jones, his next project, would include other producers. These two albums never came to pass.

Nas spoke about the caliber of 50 Cent’s music at a free event in Central Park, New York. “This isn’t some 50 Cent shit—this is the real deal!Nas was quoted as saying that he feels no obligation to retaliate, remarking that “[50 has] got a good five to six more albums before I can really respond to him.” Nas eventually decided to retaliate, and in July 2005 released “Don’t Body Ya Self (MC Burial)”, a song which taunts 50 Cent and his G-Unit crew, stating that 50 was “a sucka for death if I’m a sucka for love.” Despite all of this, Nas still claims to “have a lot of love towards 50,” claiming that 50 Cent didn’t understand his moves when they were together at Columbia Records.

Expectations for the Jay-Z/Nas collaboration increased after Nas inked a label agreement with Jay-Z’s Def Jam in January 2006, underscoring the importance of the ceasefire between the two artists. His record is slated for release in the fall of 2006 under a collaborative venture between Columbia Records and this label. He recently revealed to MTV News that the title of his album will be “Hip Hop is Dead…the N,” a play on the word “end.” The intention behind the title is to highlight what some would consider to be the present depressing state of rap music. December 19, 2006, is when the much awaited album is scheduled to be released.

Technique and Style of Music

Nas has a long history of being well-known for his inventiveness and narrative skills, which have won him praise from critics and the hip-hop community alike. During the recording of Illmatic and his initial appearance on the Main Source’s Breaking Atoms, he gained notoriety for his street-focused themes, intricate lyrical structures (which frequently featured internal rhymes with multiple syllables), and clever word choice and imagery. Nas’s voice became fuller and his rhyming style became slower as he matured and branched out into new topics.

Nas became fond of hyper-visual storytelling and topical inventiveness after the release of Illmatic. For example, “Undying Love,” which appears on I Am…, tells the story of his wife’s treachery in the first person; “Rewind,” which appears on Stillmatic, is a narrative told backwards; and “I Gave You Power,” which appears on It Was Written, has Nas playing a gun and telling violent and violent stories. Nas’ style has seen substantial variation over time. Nas’ most recent work is notably more politically charged and socially conscious than his earlier work. A number of African-American celebrities are accused of being Uncle Toms in the song “These Are Our Heroes (Coon Picnic),” whereas songs like “I Can” (included on God’s Son) promote moral messages of black youth empowerment. In addition, contentious tracks like “My Country” and “A Message to the Feds (Fuck The Police II)”—found on Stillmatic and Street’s Disciple, respectively—cast doubt on the actions of the US government. Throughout his career, Nas has alluded to Islam and the Five Percent Nation in his lyrics. Look it up on Last.fm. Text submitted by users is accessible under the Creative Commons By-SA License; further conditions might be applicable.