In the 2020s, New York rapping icon Nas has experienced quite a resurgence of his career. After dominating the 1990s and early 2000s with classic albums like Illmatic (1994), It Was Written (1996), and Stillmatic (2001), the emcee has put out four different projects since 2020. But, it seems like the 49-year-old still isn’t letting his foot off the gas.
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During a conversation with Vanity Fair earlier this week, Nas touched on his current headspace, venturing outside of music, and the 50th anniversary of hip-hop. However, while discussing his recent King’s Disease album trilogy (2020, 2021, 2022), he explained that he would like to continue putting out an album every year.
“Absolutely. I’m recording now, so we’ll see what happens,” he revealed. “I feel really good about that and I don’t wanna stop it once it’s flowing the way it’s flowing. It feels very free and I just wanna see what happens as I stick to it.”
Nas has yet to put out a full-length project so far in 2023. So, with this new intel from him, it seems likely that could happen before the year comes to an end. Continuing with Vanity Fair, he asserted that he hasn’t felt this driven as a songwriter in nearly two decades.
“I’ve been sticking to it and it’s been my whole life now,” he said about yearly albums. “Like, if I’m recording, I don’t do anything else really. It hasn’t been this way for me for probably 20 years… I’m in one of these creative growth spurts. It’s something that I’m really excited about and it surprises me – but I’m not too, too surprised because I was also waiting for the day that I felt like this again, and I knew it would come.”
With King’s Disease I and King’s Disease II, Nas earned back-to-back Grammy nominations for Best Rap Album, with the former taking home the hardware. This success has been a product of Nas’ never-ending thirst for success, he explains. But, eventually, he knows he’ll need to pump the brakes, even if he doesn’t feel like he should at this very moment.
“Every time I want to take off I get bored,” he told Vanity Fair. “And if I take too much time off, I need to keep working. I need to feel like this is life and this is what we’re supposed to do. We’re supposed to be seeing what could happen next, seeing what we can produce that would help the world or help the community or help ourselves grow higher. It’s a natural way of being. I can’t stop. I might take a break very soon. I need a break, it’s been years since I had a real break.”
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