Throughout his illustrious 20 year career, Nas has surely heard a ton of rumors about himself, but the latest tidbit surrounding him has God’s Son truly baffled.
Back in June, a Brooklyn-based rapper by the name of Your Old Droog dropped his debut self-titled EP on his Soundcloud without much of a visual presence. He wasn’t pictured on his album cover and there were no accompanying music videos, a rarity for a new MC in 2014.
What Droog did have was a 10-track project with vintage New York beats, and a vocal tone and flow which reminded many of Nas.
Initially comments on various blog sites and reddit went from: “Hey, Droog sounds like Nas” to “Nas put out a secret EP under the name Your Old Droog.” Things get even more strange when you’re the one who has to explain this hip-hop conspiracy theory to Nas for the first time.
“What do you mean a secret Nas album,” he questioned during an interview with MTV News on Monday (September 29).
The focus of the interview was Nas’ new documentary “Time is Illmatic,” which is set to open in select theaters on October 1 and then become available On Demand on October 3. We spoke about the doc and then took a bit of a turn.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Nas said with a puzzled look on his face.
Droog, has since released a freestyle video and preformed at a sold-out show in New York City, showing his face and mostly putting those pesky rumors to rest. The New Yorker, The New York Times and Complex.com have all declared that Nas is not Droog, but still there are some conspiracy theorist who are insistent.
Just for the record, I had to ask Nas: You didn’t put out a secret EP at all?
“Who me? I don’t even know what that means,” he answered. “No secret EPs, I don’t want a secret EP I want you to know it’s me when I drop.”
In fact, the highly-lauded rap veteran is working on his 13th solo LP, which was in part inspired by “Time is Illmatic.”
“This documentary sparked too much new. It sparked me up in a major way,” he said. “It’s a younger man’s game today in a lot of ways, so I felt more happy to put out music now than I ever have before because my lane is a great place to be at.”
Nas says watching the doc, which was directed by One9 and written by Erik Parker, allowed him to look back at his life and career and see all the walls he had to break down to get where he is now. Being that the rap game is run by so much new talent like Drake, Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole, Nas feels like he’s in a unique place
“I like that. I enjoy that. I need that. It makes me happy,” he said of the success of hip-hop’s young guns. “So now I’m in a greater place when it comes to putting out records because you won’t mix us up.”
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