Nas hits The Breakfast Club to reflect on how “Nasir” could have been different, staging a Firm reunion, and “King’s Disease.”
A few days removed from the release of King’s Disease, an album that many are already praising as a return to form, Nas took a moment to chop it up with The Breakfast Club. With the conversation spanning nearly one hour, a variety of topics are covered, including the logistics behind organizing a Firm reunion on the standout track “Full Circle,” featuring AZ, Cormega, Foxy Brown, and Dr. Dre.
Confirming that it was Hit-Boy‘s idea to reach out to AZ, Nas immediately appreciated the vision. “I was like wow, I knew he was really invested, serious about what we were working on when he mentioned A,” explains Nas. “And AZ was working on his new stuff too so it was perfect. And then G-Code was like, why don’t you call Cormega and Foxy Brown? And lightbulbs was going off, like let’s get at it. They was with it, and then it happened.” He also praises surprise guest Dr. Dre as “the secret sauce” of the song. “He came at the end and really made it full circle.”
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Keeping it blunt as always, Charlamagne straight-up asks what went wrong with Nasir, the infamous Kanye West-produced Surgical Summer album. Hesitant to fully agree with the negative assessment, Nas addressed the criticism with a typically-thoughtful take. “I don’t know what went wrong, but I would say I did want to work more with him,” he explains. “I did spend some time there with him, but I was working on ideas. He would give me a few loops and I would write to them, but they wasn’t finished.”
“[Kanye] was working on a lot,” continues Nas. “He had Cudi, Teyana Taylor, he had his album. I was the only one coming in starting fresh. So I had less time with him. We really did that album the week it was supposed to come out.” Envy notes that even highlights like “Cops Shot The Kid” felt rushed, a point that Nas agrees with. “It just went crazy,” he affirms. “After we announced the album, it went crazy after that. But I wanted to work with him a lot more than what we did.” Still, he maintains that he does not regret doing it, citing “Cops Shot The Kid,” “Adam & Eve,” and “Simple Things Of Life” as highlights.
Check out the whole interview below.