no way you’ll never make it, come with the weak shit i’ll take it, step into my zone mad rhymes’ll stifle ya…

yeah

NAS Interview from Scratch Magazine:

Scratch: You and DJ Premier have done some great songs together. Which is your favorite?

Nas: “N.Y. State of Mind” will always be my favorite. I vaguely remember the session. It was in the wee hours of the night and his comfort zone for recording was like mine. It was just the homies in his lab coming straight off the block. He used to come pick me up in his car for the sessions because I didn’t have a car back then. He’d stop in the ‘hood and pick me up and that night I really, really found my way with how Premier works. When I was getting in the game in ‘94 a lot of producer niggas wasn’t street niggas. Large Professor was more [academic], Pete Rock’s style was way more soul, Q-Tip was eclectic. So Premier was the only street dude other than my boy L.E.S. that dressed like me, talked like me, acted like me. It was such a relief to work with somebody in this business that was a normal ass nigga. And by that time he was already a proclaimed member of Gang Starr, but still humble.

Your first line for “N.Y. State….” started, “Rappers I monkey flip’em with the funky rhythm I be kickin’/Musician, inflictin’ composition.” Rather than rhyme about rhymin’ you spoke about music. Why?

It was definitely the track, the track told me that and, of course, my background. My pops [Trumpet player and blues man Olu Dara] does music, so obviously without a question I’m going to look into music more. He wrote music, I saw how you compose a song is mathematics so I definitely saw another side of music because of my dad.

You have co-producer credits on “Life’s A bi*ch,” “One Mic,” and “Get Down.” What was your actual involvement in each track?

The only reason I co-produced on “Life’s A bi*ch” is bringing my father there to play trumpet. That was my first album and I don’t remember what I might have added, but I credit L.E.S. with all of that. He did all of that. “One Mic,” I basically put the whole thing together, I brought the record to sample and told him where I was going, but Chucky Thompson made it sound the way it needed to sound. I also did “Suicide Bounce” on Street’s Disciple and the Rakim joint [”U.B.R (Unauthorized Biography of Rakim)”], I programmed the drums on that and added the sounds. It’s not like it’s a big deal. I don’t think I could fu*k with none of thee niggas [on production]. If I feel like doing, I’ll do it, but I don’t want to be a producer. I just play with it sometimes.

Do you remember which machines you used for your beats?

I used an SP1200 for the Rakim joint, an ASR-10 for “Suicide Bounce” and an MPC for the drums to “One Mic.”

What do you like about working with your other co-Ds, Salaam Remi, L.E.S., and Large Professor?

I like working with Salaam because he reads my mind musically and lyrically. He’s right there with me as I’m writing it. L.E.S. was there on my first album so that’s family, and I got love for Large Pro because he put me on.

So did you pay $2 Million for a Neptunes beat?

That’s a crazy rumor. I talked to Pharrell about creating a record that would go with the rumor. An issue with me has always been beats. I don’t like using what everyone else is doing.

So we got you and Premier together at HeadQcourterz, formerly D&D studios. A lot of your classics were made here. What can we expect on this album?

Premier wasn’t on my last album but he is gonna be on this one without a question. I’m excited because this cover is getting me and him to have more conversations. We talked about doing an album together and some of the listeners want to rush the sh*t-I wanna rush it,too-but I just want to pull pieces from all kinds of different people for this next puzzle because a lot of people think sh*t got easy, that I quit, because they see a brother’s married and think I ain’t on the grizzly. The sh*t is ill because everytime I listen to music these dudes is saying something about me, so they always wanna pull me back in. They never let me chill. I don’t showboat on the cover of Ebony saying I got married or tell you what I did for Katrina [victims] or what I did for Queensbridge. But dudes is forcing me to come out and speak on things that you shouldn’t have to speak on if you that dude. It’s gonna be fun, though.

Ok, so with all this peace talk is “Ether 2″ coming? “Don’t Body Yourself” seemed like a tease.

To Jay-Z’s credit, I respect him lyrically. And to 50’s credit, I respect him lyrically, but not on a level of Jay. 50 will never be on a level of Jay so it’s kind of a shift for me to switch up and do something comical, even though to MC is to have fun. But you can’t just leave all that sh*t out there ’cause if you let it stay too long they think they got one on you.

You have a lot of history with 50 cent. Is this more personal than your average rap beef?

What’s crazy is that the nigga never gave me a phone call after he blew up, and as much as he was around me I never knew how angry he was. I used to have him with me and I’d see him get mad at the crowd back then, but I liked his determination. I thought it was something that would go away once he made it happen. I’ve seen him do things you can’t come back from. Once you deal with telling the cops something, you can’t come back from that. And I saw it years ago. And I had a lot of love for that dude. I ain’t gonna lie, even today I wish I could get on the phone with the nigga and laugh about how you was with the Trackmasters, Jam Master Jay, and in videos with Onyx on hockey sticks, now look where you at. Any nigga that can come up deserves it, but I don’t respect how he gonna be mad at everybody. I read an interview where he dissed his grandparents. I think he need to know that there’s real niggas out here he can clique with and he don’t gotta think it’s him against everybody. There can be redemption.

I can’t keep track of who is beefin’ with who anymore. There needs to be a flowchart.

What 50 Cent does not understand is that Tupac was real. And I don’t mean the way hip-hop niggas, industry niggas, or Internet niggas say real. I mean mind, body, and soul warrior real. Pac was younger than we are now and you still got a nigga like 50 trying to imitate him when he ain’t gotta do that. When Biggie and Pac died they were younger than all of us! And 50 Cent’s name will never be amongst real niggas and that’s killin’ him right now. But the baddest niggas have to humble themselves sometimes. From Jesse James to Jesse Jackson, the baddest dudes have to come to some humility in they life. Humble yourself.

What was it like working on “We Major”?

Kanye is one of the elite producers in the game and just getting on his album meant a lot to me. I think someone like him takes his craft seriously. He says it was an honor to work with me and it was an honor for me, too.

He joked that he had to get permission from Jay-Z to do it.

I never thought about it. It never came up. We all love music, let’s just make music. That was just me and Kanye gettin’ down.

There were reports on the Internet that Def Jam put in a request for you to do an album with Jay-Z and Kanye.

Nothing like that was presented to me by Def Jam. I wanna participate at this point in something that is going to challenge me and push me. My listeners know that I have challenged and pushed, and something like that would be the ideal kind of thing. Something like that, I think it’s inevitable that people would want that. The only other thing people want more than that is for Biggie and Pac to come back and rock together.

So is this your last album for Columbia?

This isn’t even coming out on Columbia. I’m out of Columbia. I’m up. I got outta that. I wanna try somewhere else for a while.

There was a lot of buzz about your appearance at the Jay-Z concert before you did it. Did you know about that?

I’d been hearing that real strong. I been hearing that since the R. Kelly show got cancelled at the Garden. I wasn’t even in town and people thought I was going to show up.

So you actually did it. How did it happen? Who called who on the batphone?

It was just overdue, man. It wasn’t about who called who, I don’t remember honestly. It’s always good to get another notch in your belt in life. How many beefs do you know are squashed? Grudges….in the street or in business. How many people get over war? Any time you can squash a beef and move on, you lead by example for others to follow in a positive way. It was one of the greatest things I’ve ever done. Given the reaction, I definitely think some work could go down now.

You should do “A Million and One Questions 2006,” since everybody wants to know what you and Jigga are doing.

I totally agree. That’s a hot title. I might have to steal that title from you. I don’t want to speak for Preemo but he’s been important to both our careers and he’s the cat that when me and homie got together to talk, his name came up. And that was before I spoke to Preemo for this article. So this was destined to be.

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