Nas reflects on 50 years of hip-hop in new Billboard interview.
The hip-hop genre will celebrate 50 years this week, and ahead of the special occasion, Billboard enlists legendary Nas for a special anniversary cover story. Among other things in the interview, Nasir was asked about how young artists address conflicts with one another and ensure their safety.
“That’s a hard one for us because the streets are the streets,” he said. “We listen to music from people directly from those circumstances. Young people making the hit records are telling you what’s happening: education, disease, miseducation. Life is a tough test. The streets are the stomping grounds of warriors and good and bad people. There’s kids that come from these environments with something to say. When you ignore them, you ignore the youth. I don’t think we can stop the street mentality overnight. It’s a thing that’s in place that is strong.”
“For everybody to change it would take a miracle, but at the same time, once these artists get in the game and realize, “You’re going to change your family’s life for generations to come if you could stay alive and stay out of jail,” that seems like an easy thing to do — but when you’re fresh from that, it’s all you know. You don’t trust somebody that has been rich for 20 years telling you to chill out when you just came from an environment where nobody’s on chill. You think they over the hill and don’t know what they talking about. To get them to get where we’re at, it’s going to take a lot of work. They on their thing. They doing what they do to represent their lifestyle they were just leaving.”
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He continued, “Now, as they get successful, they have to come into their senses on their own. When you look at hip-hop’s history, you see all the companies and empires that fell because of stupidity. If they see that, they have to realize they are the next one if they don’t change. There’s a lot of stories they could watch about hip-hop empires that made terrible mistakes that destroyed families and lives. All they have to do is check the history. It’s their decision and their maturity level, and when they are going to figure it out because time is ticking — the next thing you know, you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. I just pray for them and hope for the best because talking to them is one thing, but they have to be ready for it. Sometimes they have to learn on their own.”
In the interview, Nas also reflect on 50 years of hip-hop. “It’s crazy because growing up, you always heard things about the other music forms like rock’n’roll, R&B, opera; all these great genres. They had celebratory moments and big houses to celebrate the greatness of those particular art forms. To really give hip-hop its time, it needed to happen. To start with DJ Kool Herc — he’s loved and revered and a historic figure in hip-hop who most hip-hop fans today probably don’t even know about. They probably don’t even know me. (Laughs.)”
“He’s from back in the beginning days. No one, I think, was doing it on the level of the Bronx at that time. To celebrate the Bronx and celebrate hip-hop [is special]. This lyric KRSOne once said — “Rap on a whole/Isn’t even 20 years old/50 years down the line, you can start this/Cuz we’ll be the old school artists/And even in that time, I’ll say a rhyme” — he saw it. Artists from that era were fighting for hip-hop to live and be around this long.”
“I made an album called Hip Hop Is Dead [in 2006]. Sorry not sorry, but I did because there were so many times the power of this music was in the wrong hands — not artists, [but] businesspeople. To see that we’re here and [hip-hop is] thriving [is incredible]. The art form is crazy right now. That’s a beautiful thing, and for younger artists that are just 20 years old to realize the history that is there and was laid down for them, to look at it and go, “Wow, this is a long history with deep roots,” is a great feeling.”
Check out the full interview here.
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