While performing in London with Distant Relatives partner Damian Marley, Nas stopped by Tim Westwood’s BBC Radio show to discuss his next solo project. According to the Queensbridge emcee, his next solo LP feels like “magic moment” in his career. He also mention a bevy of producers he’s hoping to collaborate with on the project. In turn that echoes his rumored collaborative albums with DJ Premier and Dr. Dre, Nas also added that Kanye West has expressed interest in producing the entire LP.
“I’m definitely looking at my [next] solo project as one of the most important records of my life,” he explained. “It’s going to be magic. That’s all I feel. I feel a magic thing happening, brewing. I keep calling it a magic moment. That’s what it’s going to be. I feel that the stuff that I’m writing down, the directions that I’m thinking about going into…it doesn’t even matter what producers [produce it], if it’s Swizz Beatz, if it’s [DJ] Premier, if it’s it’s Alchemist, Dr. Dre, Kanye West, all of these guys are guys that I love and guys that I’ve been talking to about getting in on the project. Actually, Kanye hit me up saying ‘I want to do the album.’ And RZA…Those dudes inspire me to go in there and do what I’m supposed to do at this day and age…I gotta deliver.”
Nas also discussed how he and Damian Marley connected for their critically acclaimed LP Distant Relatives. He says that what was initially supposed to be a song on 2006’s Hip-Hop is Dead turned into and EP and then eventually became a full-blown album. He also expressed how much he admires Damian’s work ethic.
“I like how [Damian Marley] gets down,” he said. “We’ve been talking bout doing more work together. We were supposed to do something on the Hip-Hop is Dead album, but it never materialized. We’d been talking back and forth and then we just planned to do an EP, but we just kept going and did an album [that eventually became Distant Relatives]…we were flowing, and [Damian’s] work ethic is some of the most focused work ethic I’ve ever seen in my life. He’s ill.”
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The full interview can be found here.
