Nas And DJ Premier Announce Joint Album

Nas And DJ Premier have announced their long-anticipated joint album with the release of the first single “Define My Name.” Released on the 30th anniversary of Nas’ iconic debut album Illmatic, the song features Premo’s distinct boom bap production and vocal scratches, and is named after a line from one of the pair’s fan-favorite collaborations, 1999’s “Nas Is Like.” The lyrics see Nas reflecting on his longevity in Hip Hop as he raps: “At 20, I said I’d better quit by 30/ Then by 30, I thought by 40 rapping is corny/ How wrong was I?/ Never would have thought at 50, new songs by Nas would be hard and live.” He also namedrops some of his Hip Hop heroes: “It was Rakim, Kool G and Kris/ Few names like Cool James, ‘Face, Cube and Rick/ That was musically sick, successful and unnatural/ I throw they songs in a cyanide capsule.” The track ends with some friendly back-and-forth between Nas and Premo, with the former saying: “I got the rhymes, you got the beats… 30 years later we back in the streets, we back in the lab… It’s album time.” The pair’s album is due for release later this year via Mass Appeal Records, according to a press release. 

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