Tony Yayo has shed light on what it was like touring with Nas on his Nastradamus promo tour, explaining it wasn’t what he expected from the legendary Queens MC.
In the latest segment from his conversation with VladTV, the former G-Unit soldier described how Nas handled himself on the road. While Yayo expected the Illmatic rhymer to be partying all the time, it turned out to be the complete opposite.
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Nas asked 50 Cent to join him on his promo tour for his 1999 album Nastradamus, and Yayo came along for the ride. Instead of getting to smoking some of the best marijuana and turning up with Nas, Yayo saw the rap legend constantly buried deep in books.
“I thought it was going to be a lot of weed smoking, like bitches on the bus, but Nas was reading books and shit,” Yayo said. “I’m going up for Illmatic, ‘I‘m a addict for sneakers, 20’s of Buddha and bitches with beepers,’ so I thought we was going to be smoking hella weed and bitches going to be running through that shit.
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“But he was kind of like a laid-back cat reading books and shit, so I was just like, ‘That’s Nas, this muthafucka is reading books, and shit.’ [He] really wasn’t smoking too much weed on the bus that was more of Jungle and them thing, but Nas is one of them smart muthafuckas, and I see how he come with the lines.”
Check out Tony Yayo’s chat with Vlad below:
50 Cent also spoke about touring with Nas in an interview with MTV. According to the G-Unit boss, Nas was the first artist to do something for him without expecting anything in return.
“Nas was the first person to do something for nothing for me,” 50 recalled. “He allowed me to go on his promo tour for Nastradamus [in 1999]. He said, ‘The way you came out with that record [‘How to Rob’], it felt like when I came out [with Illmatic].’ He wanted me to be out there. Me and Tony Yayo, we went on that promo tour. At that point, me and Nas was cool.”
In his latest interview with Billboard, Fif revealed he’s going to collaborate with Nas. The publication noted that in addition to working on a new solo album with Eminem and Dr. Dre, the G-Unit general is set to feature on Nas’ forthcoming King’s Disease 4 LP. Further details about the project, however, remain scarce.
The Queens, New York natives have released only two songs together: “Too Hot” and “Who U Rep With,” both of which appeared on 50 Cent’s 2002 mixtape Guess Who’s Back? The pair briefly clashed in 2005 when 50 mocked Nas on “Piggy Bank” for getting a tattoo of his now-ex-wife Kelis (“Kelis said her milkshake bring all the boys to the yard/ Then Nas went and tattooed the bitch on his arm.”)
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However, any lingering tension was diffused in 2014 when the pair shared the stage at Hot 97’s Summer Jam. 50 later gave Nas his flowers during an interview with Hot 97 last year, saying: “I love Nas. He’s really the one. He is the guy, the lyrical — we was figuring out how to do it.”
