What's up everyone?
I'm Nora Prinziati.
And I'm Nathan Hubbard. And we're coming in like a wrecking ball to announce a brand new series.
That's right, it's every single album, Miley Cyrus.
Deep dive with us into the career of one of our most creative and confounding pop stars.
We're starting, of course, with the best of Hannah Montana.
And ending with her brand new album, Something Beautiful, in June.
And don't forget about Miley Cyrus and her dead pets.
We certainly will not be doing that.
So listen now on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
I do not enjoy conflict.
I don't like it when people argue.
It makes me viscerally uncomfortable.
I don't like it when people argue in books.
I don't like it when people argue in sitcoms. I don't like it when people argue in movies.
You know the part in every romantic comedy when the couple breaks up?
I hate that part. This happens without fail like 70 % of the way through every romcom ever made.
when there's exactly 20 minutes left in the movie the couple angrily breaks up and they say terrible things to one another and then they're both alone and miserable and remorseful for like five minutes of screen time while like a song by peter gabriel or mary j blige or the national is playing and then the couple triumphantly reconciles in the last 15 minutes of the movie but i can't even enjoy Enjoy that tender, super sweet, climactic, triumphant, romantic comedy reunion.
Because I'm still recovering from when they angrily broke up 20 minutes ago.
I hate that part. I don't like it when people say mean things to each other.
I certainly don't like it when people argue IRL.
And I am nearly physically incapable of being one of the people arguing.
you know the Jonathan Richmond song couples must fight Jonathan Richmond phenomenal singer songwriter leader of the modern lovers back in the 70s proud Bostonian infectiously childlike plays a nylon string acoustic guitar fantastic dancer one of the best live shows I've ever seen Jonathan Richmond he's the guy singing in the tree at the beginning of there's something about Mary.
You know, this guy.
They've tried to set him up with Tiffany and Indigo, but there's something about Mary that they don't know.
That's Jonathan Richman.
There's Something About Mary.
That's a classic 90s rom -com, and I haven't seen it in like 25 years, but I just looked up the plot summary on Wikipedia, And yeah, Cameron Diaz and Ben Stiller break up with roughly 20 minutes left. And there's something about Mary.
And then they joyfully reconcile with the help of Brett Favre.
That's even worse. But so Jonathan Richman puts out a song in 2001 called Couples Must Fight.
was clear the air. And I disagree.
No, they mustn't. Please don't fight, couples.
I'm sorry, Jonathan Richman.
I don't mean to argue with you.
That's so rude of me.
Whatever you think is fine.
I'm sorry. Forget I said anything.
There are some famous movies I will never, ever watch, because it's clear to me that the whole movie is just people being super mean to each other.
Whiplash? The mean jazz drummer movie?
No. Hell no. I don't even like whimsical, absurdist, ostensibly comedic arguments in movies.
Please, both of you, knock it off.
You are not a man. You are a big fat joke.
I'm a man who discovered the wheel and built the Eiffel tower out of metal and brawn that's what kind of man i am you're just a woman with a small brain no i don't even like it when will ferrell and christina applegate fight in anchorman colon the legend of ron burgundy the 2004 semi -rom -com where they're trading ridiculous insults for basically the whole movie wait though christina's about to have what you might call her a minor minor moment.
You are a smelly pirate hooker.
You look like a blueberry.
Why don't you go back to your home on Whore Island?
Well, you have bad hair.
You know what I mean?
Then Will Ferrell freaks out, and Christina Applegate throws a typewriter at his head.
I'm not into it. Even in Will Ferrell movies, I hate it when people say mean things to each other.
I do not enjoy conflict.
I don't care for beef.
You need to know this about me.
You need to know up front that this is going to hurt me way more than it hurts you, because today we're dealing entirely with conflict, enmity, cruelty, discouraging words.
Today, beef's the only thing on the menu.
Why did these two guys have to fight, man?
It breaks my heart.
They had so much in common. Okay.
They had some stuff in common. They had roughly the same job.
They both loved and exemplified the same art form.
They didn't come from exactly the same place.
They didn't have exactly the same origin story.
They didn't experience the same levels of violence and grittiness growing up.
They perhaps had different stuff in their dressers.
Yeah. And they didn't have exactly the same skill level but nonetheless why couldn't they just be friends come on guys say something nice about each other i read the new testament and gave it up for land all the places i went just to pay my rent used to keep me bent on the ritual daily cock my hammer spit a comet like hailey a bucket be 80 on ones that act shady but no Everlast just had to mention Eminem's daughter all right this is a song called Eardrums Pop from the Los Angeles rap group Dilated Peoples I just got the pun in that name Dilated Peoples just now this is their Eardrums Pop remix
which came out in the year 2000 and features a guest verse from a famous rapper and singer -songwriter named Everlast better Better known as the guy from House of Pain, a more famous Los Angeles rap group, best known for their 1992 smash crossover hit, Jump Around.
Fun fact about me, whenever I even hear the name House of Pain, I immediately go watch the scene from the 90s semi -rom -com Swingers with the main characters, a bunch of mostly white dudes.
They get into an argument in a parking lot with a bunch of slightly tougher looking mostly white dudes.
and then one of the main characters a guy named sue he pulls a gun and the tougher looking guys all run away and then all sue's friends yell at him for pulling a gun and then vince vaughn says oh like fucking house of pain was gonna do anything this is a conflict heavy scene admittedly but i love it anyway people get carjacked oh man who would ever carjack your fucking k -car he's right sue you don't need to carry a gat listen just because i had the balls to stand up to these fucking guys My fucking house, the pain was going to do anything?
Yeah, so Everlast has been famous since Jump Around blew up.
But now, by the year 2000, Everlast has reinvented himself as a gritty, dour, semi -melodic singer -songwriter thanks to a surprisingly big hit he had in 1998 called What It's Like.
God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in his shoes in college in the late 90s i used to walk around campus singing semi -rude alternate lyrics to this song to myself i have no idea why i did that here's another song about a guy who's had a real of crap his wife.
They shot his dog and spanked his kids and they screwed his wife.
That's pretty rude.
That is uncharacteristic of me.
What it's like is fine.
I'm not trying to start beef with Everlast. Okay, so it's 2000 now and Everlast is a weird rock star rap star hybrid and Everlast turns up on this dilated People's remix and he says, cock my hammer, spit a comet like Haley, I'll buck a 380 on ones that act shady.
And I'm sure Eminem, a .k .a.
Marshall Mathers, a .k .a.
Slim Shady, a .k .a. the Detroit -raised rap superstar and pop supernova who says super mean things about people for a living and also famously has a daughter named Haley, I'm sure Eminem will respond to this provocation magnanimously.
Of course, I'm just kidding.
No, instead, Eminem and Everlast start exchanging increasingly caustic diss tracks, culminating in Quitter, a nearly seven -minute barrage of unpleasantries.
In May of 2024, back when rap beef was suddenly extremely newsworthy, you know what I mean?
In May 2024, The Ringer published a giant list of the 81 greatest diss tracks of all time.
And for your reference, Eminem's Quitter, which also came out in 2000, Quitter is officially the 37th best diss track of all time.
Also, and I can't decide if this song would be ranked higher or lower if this weren't the case.
Also, the vast majority of Quitter's nearly seven -minute runtime is devoted to Eminem repeatedly pointing out that Everlast had a heart attack.
The fact that Everlast had a heart attack comes up frequently during this particular rap feud.
This is Eminem's primary weapon.
In Anchorman, Will Ferrell's biggest weakness is his hair, uh Everlast's biggest weakness is his heart Eminem's like hey you had a heart attack but so then Eminem rattles on for a little while about how backstage at one of his shows Eminem walked by Everlast and Eminem apparently ignored Everlast in Everlast's opinion and so in retaliation Everlast goes and jumps on a dilated people's song and goes cock my hammer spit a comet like like Haley, et cetera, and the rest is history.
Notably, Everlast says that he was unaware at the time that Eminem had a daughter named Haley.
The Haley's comment reference was coincidental, and therefore, according to Everlast, he brought up Eminem's daughter on accident.
That's a tough break, dude.
Everlast talked about this in a 2020 episode of the rapper Talib kweli's podcast people's party with talib kweli furthermore and i wouldn't tell you this if it were important everlast now looks like michael mcdonald the dude from the doobie brothers the super melodic yacht rock captain what a fool believes and so forth everlast now has snow white hair and a substantial snow white beard and at first i thought he looked like george lucas but no he looks like michael mcdonald that's a compliment michael mcdonald is a handsome and dignified looking older gentlemen.
To repeat, I am not trying to start beef with Everlast. Meanwhile, Eminem is still talking wild shit on this quitter song.
At one point, Em starts talking about how he saw House of Pain live in the mid nineties, but he thought the opening band was better.
Eminem is talking about Limp Bizkit, the world historically uncouth new metal band Limp Bizkit, who, according to Eminem, were better live than House of Pain back in 1994.
And indeed, House of Pain's DJ, DJ Lethal, he went on to join Limp Bizkit after House of Pain broke up.
M &M saying to Everlast in essence Limp Bizkit murdered you on your own shit that's interesting and diss tracks are like this right they're a chaotic mix of playground insults arcane personal grievances wikipedia dumps rude musical analysis serious health problems and uh what else what else gay stuff that's what else diss my wife but at least i got a bitch you gay nobody's doing their best work lyrically or morally in this particular rap battle or really in 98 percent of rap battles.
Also, as you may have noticed, the song Quitter has gone on for so long that Eminem switched beats.
He switched to the Hit Em Up beat.
Hit Em Up, of course, being the 1997 Tupac diss track aimed at, most famously, the notorious B .I .G.
According to The Ringer, Hit Em Up is, in fact, the number one greatest diss track of all time with, whether you like it or not, pretty objectively, the most famous opening lines in rap feud history.
anyways you ever see the video on youtube of hit him up playing over scenes from barney and friends the popular children's show barney and friends barney the purple dinosaur it's good stuff the The first 10 seconds of the Tupac Barney video are really something.
Anyways, that's Tupac's Hit Em Up, the best diss track ever, according to the website I work for.
Whereas Eminem only makes it as high as number 12.
Dick in the industry, swear that you industry is hustling.
You sit me on a fucking desk and the source butt kissing it.
Begging motherfuckers for guest appearances and you can't even get the clearances.
Because real lyricists don't even respect you or take you seriously.
This is an Eminem song called Nail in the Coffin.
It's from 2002, and it is the culmination of Eminem's even nastier and more personal feud with Benzino, the rapper and provocateur and then co -owner of The Source magazine.
magazine. And the Eminem -Benzino feud is of rich text, right?
And that it's both a rap feud and a media feud.
The Source at the time is the most important hip -hop -focused magazine.
It's basically the rap bible.
And The Source only gives Eminem's 2002 album, The Eminem Show, four mics out of five.
The Source reviews records on a five -mic scale as opposed to a five -star scale.
And Eminem gets pissed because getting five mics in The Source is genuinely one of the rarest and greatest honors in hip -hop but eminem says benzino who is black will never give an eminem album five mics because eminem is white and benzino gets pissed at eminem and calls him 2003 vanilla ice etc calamity ensues and the subtext here the enormous power that the rap media used to wield and the enormous power that the source especially used to wield and the fraught racial dynamics swirling around the initial meteoric rise of Eminem, that's all legitimately fascinating and important.
Although, to be absolutely clear, Eminem is like 800 times better at rapping than Benzino, and this particular beef is thus both especially repugnant and hopelessly lopsided.
Eminem is like, dude, you suck so bad at rapping, which raises the question.
Among the countless rappers with whom Eminem has feuded, also including such luminaries as Insane Clown Posse, Machine Gun Kelly, Nick Cannon, Limp Bizkit and A Separate Incident, Cannabis, Royce Da 5 '9", and Ja Rule, who is historically Eminem's worthiest adversary?
adversary who rose or sunk as it were to his level none of them honestly all of m &m's rap battle adversaries are tied for last stylistically compared to him royce to 5 -9 despite being only 5 -9 royce is cool and he and m &m are friends again but nonetheless m &m has never battled a true equal lyrically or culturally which is too bad culturally but it's also a huge relief like like, for society.
Eminem in an actually evenly matched rap battle is an extinction -level event.
But this in turn raises another question.
Who is Eminem's worthiest adversary, if by worthiest we mean the guy who most deserved it?
You know who most deserved to get dissed by Eminem historically?
This guy. Who the fuck is that guy right there?
That fucking guy right there.
What Ray Romano's bothering him Who Ray who Ray Romano the guy from Everybody Loves Raymond Who the fuck would show he's on I'll fuck this motherfucker up man Ray Romano Famous comedian Titular star of the late 90's Early 2000's blockbuster sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond And my personal nemesis Ray Romano Oh Ray Romano I know I said I don't like conflict or beef or people saying mean things to one another but for both swingers and Ray Romano I will make an exception I don't care for people talking shit unless they're talking shit about Ray Romano in which case proceed if everybody loves Raymond
then I'm dead sorry sorry that's a clip from the 2009 Judd Apatow comedy funny people people starring adam sandler is a barely altered version of himself seth rogan as a barely altered version of himself and a ton of famous people as basically actually themselves including ray romano and eminem in that scene they're all in a crowded restaurant and eminem sitting at a table with adam sandler and ems complaining about how he gets hounded in public everywhere he goes and ray romano sneaks a picture of him and m flips out eminem is a more compelling screen presence In funny people Than he is in 8
Mile This fictional but not fictional Because fuck him Conflict with Ray Romano doesn't count as a rap battle Obviously But there is nonetheless Gay stuff Hey Ray Hello Marshall Fucking problem here buddy Would you like to fuck me Is that what this is I get it man what's going on Would you like me to fucking bend over for you right now No no no man seth rogan whispering say no that's the crowning touch there ray deserves it ray has earned all the smoke people say i look like ray romano that's the entire basis of my beef with him he has personally done nothing to me and he is entirely unaware that i
exist once a month on average i'll be out somewhere and a total stranger will come up to me and be like hey you you know who you look like?
And I know it's coming.
So I'll be like, who?
And they'll be like, you kind of look like Ray Romano. And I'll be like, Oh, I don't look that much like Ray Romano. In my opinion, we're both medium, schlubby, disheveled, beleaguered, looking, rapidly graying white guys.
The connection is tenuous.
And it's not like he's the ugliest dude in town.
He's not Michael McDonald caliber handsome, but he's inoffensive.
He's a replacement level looking guy.
It just bothers me.
All right, can we please compare me to somebody else?
My grandmother thought I looked like Elvis Presley.
That's insane. But nonetheless, this is apparently my biggest weakness.
My enemies are like, you look like Ray Romano. So this is also bothering me.
I strive on this show sincerely to avoid oblique references differences, inside baseball, rock critic jargon, etc. Sincerely, I desire to be understood by everyone.
I try to briefly and unobtrusively describe any person or song or concept that comes up.
Jonathan Richman, for example.
And so, for those of you already up on this, which is most likely most of you, forgive me, but just in case, for example, my mother is still listening to this, hello, mom.
Once again, I apologize for all the swearing and also the phantom dick thing, which you brought up two days ago.
And also, in the spring of 2024, Kendrick Lamar and Drake had a lengthy and alarmingly personal superstar -rapper feud, generating a delightful and terrifying barrage of diss tracks in a remarkably compressed amount of time.
It got super ugly. Playground insults, arcane personal grievances, Wikipedia dumps, blunt accusations of domestic abuse and pedophilia, etc. And this feud culminated in the relentlessly Drake -bashing kendrick lamar song not like us and in sharp contrast to the vast majority of diss tracks not like us became a freak smash pop hit it hit number one on the billboard hot 100 it won record and song of the year at the grammys it defined the zeitgeist kendrick just did this song at the fucking super bowl halftime show sorry mom kendrick lamar just did this song at the fucking super bowl can i tell you
honestly that my favorite line and not like us is i'ma do my stuff I just like it when rappers do their stuff but yeah my personal primary takeaway from the cultural phenomenon of not like us is that now whenever anybody says anything truly devastating and out of pocket about somebody else or whenever anyone commits a mortifying self -devastating fuck up some random corner of my brain goes we've decided to go back to the name HBO max max this is my problem but the whole point of this show is to turn my problems into everyone else's problems in what remains of the hip -hop media the cultural media the content
industry etc not like us prompted a radical reassessment of the rap diss track what makes a great diss track and what a great diss track is capable of hence the ringers list of the 81 best diss tracks of all time where for your reference not like us rang in at number eight kendrick lamar's not like us is slightly better than real motherfucking g's by eazy -e and it's slightly worse than the bridge is over by krs -1's boogie down productions my long -suffering editor justin sales wants me to to clarify that this list came out two days after Not Like Us first dropped, and he'd rank it higher now.
Fair enough. Tupac's Hit Em Up is number one.
Ice Cube's No Vaseline is number two.
Don't look that one up, mom.
And this is number three.
My name is Rob Harvilla.
This is the 21st episode episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s coal in the 2000s and this week we are discussing ether by the deified new york city rapper naz from his 2001 album stillmatic by new york city i mean queens and by queens i mean queensbridge yes the relentlessly jay -z bashing naz song ether what is the moment on ether you want to knock that out real quick hell yeah here it is there it is this is where ether peaks stan is an eminem reference obviously eminem is everywhere you 36 in a karate class i love it i'll stop doing that now probably i got to the ad break way quicker than usual
i'm pretty impressed with myself i shouldn't be i i got to the ad break marginally quicker than last time and last time was horrible uh whatever let's celebrate small victories how should we celebrate oh right fantastic whatever product or service was just advertised get 20 off right now with the promo code like fucking house of pain was gonna do anything that's not true obviously i'm just kidding that's way too long a phrase for a promo code that's too bad all right let's get this show on the road i was gonna talk about cannabis and ll cool jay for like 20 minutes but now i'm not gonna true story
time for the main event let's meet our combatants nas versus jay -z queens meaning the queensbridge houses versus Brooklyn, meaning the Marcy houses.
God's son versus the business comma man.
Cryptocurrency Scarface, Nas has been calling himself that recently.
That's ridiculous. Versus Jehovah.
Jay -Z has been calling himself that pretty much the whole time.
The subway track versus the heartbeat.
beat. That's the first seven seconds of the first Nas album, which is released in 1994 and is called Illmatic and is one of the most deified and canonized and lavishly praised hip -hop records of all time.
Illmatic has been praised so lavishly that it both made Nas's career and has arguably plagued Nas's career ever since but so that subway rumble that little snippet of dialogue that's a sample from the 1983 film wild style which itself is a formative piece of hip -hop culture so Nas has got the train tracks and Jay -z has got the heartbeat ah see okay okay all right big man you want to make some big bucks huh let's see how tough you are.
You know something about cocaine?
That's the first 10 seconds of the first Jay -Z record released two years later in 1996 on his own Rockefeller records and called A Reasonable Doubt.
You get a heartbeat and then you get a guy doing some lines from the 1983 film Scarface, the cocaine tornado Al Pacino ultra -violent camp classic.
Say hello to my little friend and so so forth.
Scarface is arguably an even more crucial, informative piece of hip -hop culture than Wild Style.
Reasonable Doubt is a beloved all -time classic debut album as well, but it's not quite as deified.
The crown of Reasonable Doubt does not hang as heavily on Jay -Z's head.
It is not the albatross to Jay -Z that Illmatic possibly is to Nas.
But I do think the Jay -Z versus Nod feud starts right here in the respective opening seconds of their respective bulletproof all -time classic debut albums, The Subway versus The Heartbeat.
That physical harmony and that inherent conflict from this moment forward, this conflict is inevitable.
Inevitably, one of these men will be a 36 -year -old man in a karate class, and inevitably, the other one of these men will We'll point that out on record, but let's give Nas his full due, shall we?
And that requires going back a few years to the very first verse that made him famous.
This song is called Live at the Barbecue.
it appears on breaking atoms the 1991 debut album from main source the famed rap group split between new york city and toronto the dustiness of this simple but monumental drum loop right the tactile the formative the classic the old school the golden age aura of just those drums live at the barbecue feels like a big deal before it even kicks off with a verse from a teenage rapper then known as Nasty Nas.
This single Nas verse itself is famous and canonical and heavy with portent.
And this is probably the best and most famous and nastiest part.
heart. When I was 12, I went to hell for snuffing Jesus.
Yeah, this guy is going to be super famous.
Nazir bin Oludara Jones was born in Brooklyn on September 14, 1973.
His mother, Anne, worked for the u .s postal service his father oludara was a jazz trumpeter in 1985 nasa's parents divorced in 2002 nasa's mother anne dies of breast cancer she was 61.
when naz is very young he moves to the queensbridge housing projects in the long island city neighborhood in queens right across the east river from manhattan queensbridge by 1991 is already a very famous location in rap music Thanks in large part to the Juice Crew.
Marley Marle, MC Shan, Roxanne Shante, Cool G Rap, etc. Queensbridge has already played a central role in various extremely famous rap feuds.
The Bridge Is Over by Boogie Down Productions is about Queensbridge.
And that diss track is indeed ultra famous.
But Queensbridge is nonetheless still thriving even before this record comes out.
I never sleep cause sleep is the cousin of death yeah this guy's gonna be super super super famous this song is called New York State of Mind it is produced by the great DJ Premier and it is the first full song on Nas's first album 1994's Illmatic it is legitimately very challenging to discuss Illmatic reasonably.
People really, really, really, really, really love Illmatic.
Illmatic is a sacred object, a sacred entity.
Illmatic is mounted on a towering pedestal that has arguably become for Nas, sometimes quite literally, a cross to bear or to be crucified upon.
Illmatic got a perfect five mics rating in The Source back in 1994.
Back in 2013, an Illmatic reissue got a perfect 10 score in Pitchfork.
I don't think any other record in history has gotten both five mics in the source and a Pitchfork 10, but I don't have time to confirm that right now.
I'm very busy. Okay.
People's Instinctive Travels and The Paths of Rhythm, the debut album by A Tribe Called Quest, that also got five mics in the source and much later a Pitchfork 10.
I made some time. Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy also Also got five mics and a pitch for 10, both of those upon release.
But the source was a very different magazine by then, by 2010, so I don't know if that really counts.
I don't have time for this.
I can't stress to you enough how busy I am.
I thought maybe a De La Soul record got both too, but it turns out De La Soul is dead, got five mics, and then much later, Three Feet High and Rising got a pitch for 10.
Honestly, I have lots of other things to do.
Illmatic is 10 tracks, including the intro, in under 40 minutes.
with production from such likewise absurdly deified figures as DJ Premier, Pete Rock, and Large Professor from Main Source.
This record is perfect.
It is the quintessential no skips situation.
It is a minefield of superlatives and ludicrously elevated expectations.
It might be best for everyone, Nas included, if we didn't really even talk about this record anymore and just played it in full every day instead.
It's such a relatively insignificant significant thing, but right now I'm really into the way Nas pronounces the word off here.
I set it off with my own rhyme because I'm as ill as a convict who kills for phone time.
Unbelievable. This song is called Halftime.
It's track five out of 10 on Illmatic.
and I always really appreciated the truth in advertising of that song title.
Look, it's not that Nas invented lyrical complexity, internal rhyme, high concept storytelling, or the artful blurring between rapping about stuff he did versus rapping about stuff he saw other people do.
But when Illmatic hits you just right, Nas feels like a quantum leap forward in all of that.
This is 1994. New York City has the Wu -Tang Clan and a tribe called Quest. And by the fall of 94, New York City has the notorious B .I .G.'s ready to die.
But New York is no longer the undisputed epicenter of rap.
Dr. Dre's The Chronic from late 92 is still dominant.
West Coast G -Funk is still dominant.
Snoop Doggy Dogg's solo debut, Doggy Style, out in late 93, that's still dominant to the point where virtually every major review of illmatic mentions doggy style somewhere often in the first sentence but illmatic like all those other records has an immaculate sense of place it puts you on nas's block it puts you in nas's shoes it makes you see through nas's eyes and maybe sometimes it makes you stare malevolently at out -of -towners corners through nasa's eyes this song is called a represent it is produced once again by dj premiere mirror the jovial bounce to represent only heightens the malevolence
now naz is maybe on an individual level not the scariest the most dangerous rapper to emerge from queensbridge in the 90s his friends usually they're his friends prodigy and havoc from the duo mob deep are notably shorter than him but they come across as a touch grimier perhaps or anyway when prodigy raps about how he's going to stab your brain with your nose bone on the big 95 mob deep hit shook once part two something in the iciness of prodigy's tone suggests that he has real world experience using someone's nose bone as a weapon whereas i don't know if naz has ever wielded somebody's nose bone
as a weapon but i am willing to consider the possibility possibility.
Because when Nas is rapping about anything with this level of vividness and intricacy, I am willing to consider really any possibility about the world Nas lives in and the the stuff Nas does in it.
If Nas says he's pulling a Tech N9ne semi -automatic out of his dresser, then who am I to dispute this?
And that mentality, my conflict averse, who am I to dispute this mentality that's one big reason why i personally have never started a rap battle with anybody but at least in retrospect at least now the nas versus jay -z battle royale is already looming here on ilmatic there are as you might imagine different accounts of where this feud starts exactly but one popular theory is that all the trouble starts with a hotline this song is called the world is yours produced by pete rock a phenomenal loop of the jazz pianist ama jamal driving this one ama jamal is from pittsburgh i didn't know that i don't
have of time for this.
I'm out for dead presidents to represent me.
That is indeed a hotline.
How hot, precisely, you ask?
Hot enough that a young, world -historically brazen Brooklyn rapper named Jay -Z builds his first big single, Dead Presidents, off a loop of Nas's voice on the The World Is Yours remix.
A reworked version of this Jay -Z song called Dead Presidents 2 is the finest moment on Jay -Z's own deified and zeitgeist -defining debut album released in 1996 and called Reasonable Doubt.
I don't mean to offend you.
It's fine if you like another song on Reasonable Doubt better than Dead dead presidents, too.
You like the evils better?
That's a great choice.
You have great taste.
I don't want any trouble.
So in most versions of this story, Jay -Z politely asks if Nas would like to recreate the dead president's hook and maybe be in the video.
And Nas, who was substantially more famous at the time, he politely declines.
And so Jay -Z politely samples the hook instead.
And thus does a hotline from 1994 become a hot song in 1996, and Nas and Jay -Z proceed with the early phases of their generation -defining blockbuster careers.
For Nas, this means trying desperately to live up to the promise of Illmatic and incredibly often succeeding.
this day my body is cold still for real i was made to kill that's why they keep me concealed the second nas album released in 1996 and called it was written uh yes this is the album that samples sting this is the album where nas personally sings a slightly reworded version of the chorus to sweet dreams by the eurythmics as a pop crossover play uh this is the album where Nas dials up the mafioso tough guy talk.
This is the album where the songs with the mob deep guys are way better than the song with Dr. Dre.
But It Was Written is also the album with If I Ruled the World.
Imagine that. Featuring Lauryn Hill and still Nas' most purely pleasurable pop song.
And yeah, this is also the album with this song called I Gave You Power, produced once again by DJ Premier, in which Nas raps the whole time from the perspective of a gun.
They use me wrong, so I sing this song to this day.
This is a high -risk maneuver, this rapping like you're a gun business.
I don't know how you do this and avoid sounding corny, sounding melodramatic, sounding pedantic.
Maybe Nas doesn't avoid sounding corny, melodramatic, and pedantic.
The intro to I Gave You Power, in which Nas is like, check it out, guys.
I'm about to pretend I'm a gun.
Just to clarify, I'm a gun right now.
Me equals gun. Okay, that's pretty corny.
But what strikes me here, at a bare minimum, is that Nas will always take the risk.
and that's how on one album nas went from rapping about the tech in his dresser to rapping about being a gun in the dresser next to the tech he's got range what's the worst thing you can say about this album it was written it's not ilmatic what's the worst thing you can say about the firm uh the extra tough guy mafioso super group of naz foxy brown az and nature that put out one album called The Album in 1997.
I'm very busy. I don't have time to talk about the firm.
What's the worst thing you can say about I Am and Nostradamus, the two full albums Nas put out in 1999?
One of them starts with a song called New York State of Mind Part Two, and the other one is called Nostradamus, and neither album is Illmatic.
Maybe that's not the worst thing you can say about any of that, but that's the worst thing i can say because i hate conflict nas is doing great generally nas is wrapping his ass off constantly and nas is grappling provocatively with the power vacuum at the highest echelon of hip -hop in the late 90s what up big you know shit is rough after you slid you in god's hands now keep a place on me can't ain't nothing changed still partying bullshit we used to fuck r &b bitches and see who raps sickest this song is called we will survive off i am one of naz's 1999 albums the one that's not called nostradamus does
this song sample kenny loggins yes is that corny maybe is kenny loggins handsomer than michael mcdonald as yacht rock heavyweights go possibly possibly.
Nas is talking directly to the Notorious B .I .G.
He's talking to Biggie in the first verse.
Nas is talking directly to Tupac in the second verse.
And both Biggie and Tupac are gone.
Tupac's Hit Em Up may in fact be the greatest diss track in history, but part of the terrible monumental weight of Hit Em Up is that three months after Hit Em Up comes out, Tupac is shot and killed.
And less than seven months after that, Biggie is shot and killed, and the hip -hop universe is devastated.
There's a period of profound mourning.
There's a period of recalibration.
Some of us briefly lose our taste for vicious diss tracks and for violent East Coast versus West Coast sensationalism.
Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan calls a truce.
Cooler heads, relatively prevail briefly in the next few years many of us will quickly regain our taste for vicious diss tracks for various reasons one of whom is named 50 cent but there's another major issue both in hip -hop at large and in new york city specifically who's on top now there's a power vacuum there is a vacant throne naz for his part finds such talk distasteful and on this song we we will survive.
He tells Biggie as much. It used to be fun making records to see your response but now competition is none.
Now that you're gone and these niggas is wrong.
Using your name in vain and they claim to be New York's king?
It ain't about that.
And they claim to be New York's king.
Who could Nas be referring to here, you think?
From now until they blow holes in my brains i'ma stand firm holding my aim i'm the focal point like biggie and his crime on the low dough excuse me uh did jay -z get the hit r &b group black street to sing the hook to glenn fry's 1985 yacht rock classic, You Belong to the City?
You belong to the city.
Glenn Frey, the guy from the Eagles.
Is that corny? That's not the point here.
But what if that is the point here?
Actually, this song from Jay -Z's 1997 album In My Lifetime, Volume One is called The City is mine and on it jay -z raps directly to biggie and also jay -z raps explicitly about how he's taking biggie's place okay okay there's some other minor pre -game stuff uh the lexus references jay -z's minor fracas with mob deep uh nas's minor fracas with memphis bleak uh memphis bleak jay -z's slightly less prominent rapper friend and henchman.
Me, I just like saying the word fracas, etc. We don't have time for any of that.
On the other hand, yo, did you know Jay -Z and Nas did a song together with this guy?
We may, in fact, have time for this.
Shaquille O 'Neal, the guy from the Lakers?
Did Shaq just say, I'm not just taco, I'm the whole enchilado?
This is now my second favorite Shaq rap song.
After Tell Me How My Ass Tastes.
This song is called No Love Lost, off Shaq's 1996 album You Can't Stop The Rain.
And both Jay -Z and Nas were supposed to be on it, but Nas' verse didn't get cleared.
So the version of this song with both Jay -Z and Nas and Lord Tariq didn't come out until 2024.
Nonetheless, this happened.
This is history. Yeah, we'll see about that showdown.
uh okay jay -z is not exactly doing his best work here let's see if naz is doing his best work here okay naz is not exactly doing his best work here am i greedy like i mean ed you just said EDM means name backward. That's cheating.
Is Shaquille O 'Neal doing his best work here, rapping -wise?
I don't have time to talk about Shaq.
On June 28, 2001, at Summer Jam, the annual rap superstar blowout festival held that year at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island and hosted by fabled New York City radio station Hot 97, which to this day is one of the things I i miss most about living in new york hot 97 at the 2001 hot 97 summer jam jay -z debuts a new song take over the brakes over nigga god mc me jay hover hey little soldier you ain't ready for war roc too strong for y 'all This song is called Takeover.
This is the recorded version of Takeover.
There is video footage of Jay -Z at the 2001 Summer Jam, but that footage was uploaded by a YouTube account called Hip Hop VCR.
Thank you for that, but there are audio fidelity issues.
This song is called Takeover.
It is really tremendously rude.
rude. One could argue that the absolute rudest part of Jay -Z's summer jam premiere of TakeOver happens immediately.
And right here, on screen, on the four huge Huge Nassau Coliseum jumbotrons or whatever.
A crowd of 15 ,000 people gets to see photos of Prodigy from Mobb Deep at 13 or 14 years old.
Dressed up, for example, as Michael Jackson for a performance at his grandmother's dance studio.
Just to give this moment a little extra pizzazz.
Jay -Z also brings out actual, literal Michael Jackson at 2001 Summer Jam.
Yeah, Michael Jackson doesn't sing or dance or really do anything.
But nonetheless, I'm about to play you a ton of clips from these last two songs in quick succession.
So quick sidebar, do you know who Tom Bryan is?
The fantastic rap blogger, music critic, stereo gum columnist, author of the book The Number Ones, one of my favorite writers ever.
I worked with Tom Bryan at The Village Voice when I lived in New York, and I miss him too.
But while I was there, I developed a sort of logic problem that I call the Tom Bryan theorem.
And here it is. If you were at a Jay -Z concert and it was just Jay -Z alone on stage rapping, and then Jay -Z brought somebody out.
Let's say Jay -Z brings out Michael Jackson on stage, and then Michael Jackson brings somebody out, and then that person brings somebody out, and then that person brings somebody out, etc. if each successive person who gets brought out brings out the next person how many people are on stage before somebody brings tom bryan out that's the tom bryan theorem just think about it okay this verse of jay -z's takeover is about naz Don't worry about the Uchihuali bodyguard thing.
I'm too busy. I've always liked Takeover better than Ether.
I should say that at some point, right?
I just said it. It's 80 % the baseline that makes me love this one more.
Takeover appears on the 2001 blockbuster Jay -Z album, The Blueprint, released on Tuesday, September 11th, along with albums by slayer bob dylan and they might be giants i'm incredibly busy takeover is produced by one kanye west and takeover samples prodigiously the doors the door song five to one takeover also samples krs1 the bridge is over guy krs1 is everywhere the doors all these superstar star tough guy rappers constantly rapping over yacht rock and classic rock and dad rock and whatnot i love it you know what jay -z was also maybe occasionally doing when he was pushing weight in 88 listening
to the doors and the eagles uh you had a spark when you started but now you're just garbage okay the nice way to put it is that ilmatic will always be naz's best album this is the not nice way to put it for your reference in jay -z's estimation i am and nostradamus are due uh it was written as nah and Illmatic is Illmatic even people actively insulting Nas won't talk shit about Illmatic remember when J.
Cole dissed Kendrick Lamar right when the Kendrick Drake war first started and J.
Cole was like your first shit was classic your last shit was tragic your second shit put people to sleep but they gassed it your third shit was massive and that was your prime J.
Cole trying to insult kendrick lamar by saying kendrick had a too hot album every 10 year average that's one of my personal favorite moments of 2024 okay i'm reloaded i'm jumping around this verse a little bit to serve my own arbitrary purposes but here we have have perhaps the definitive word on the dead president's situation if there is a single one -liner from takeover that still rattles around my brain constantly it's you made it a hotline i made it a hot song but there's another slightly less snappy one -liner that's way up there for me but first dig the extra disrespectful way jay -z's voice
almost cracks on you ain't live it and we return here to the tech on nasa's dresser and to nasa's artful blurring between rapping about stuff he did versus rapping about stuff he saw other people do and jay -z's contention that he did way more of the stuff he raps about than naz did because see now i'm stuck on the line you scribbled in your notepad and created your life don't all rappers do that ultimately did naz scribble in his notepad and create his life more than any other rapper or did naz just scribble in his notepad and create his life better than pretty much any other rapper.
Anyway, I'm sure Nas will respond to this provocation magnanimously.
ether appears on naz's fifth solo album released in 2001 and called stillmatic yes stillmatic naz and jay -z agree that ilmatic looms over everything stillmatic came out in december 2001 so ether premiered like six months after summer jam when takeover premiered it used to take half a year for rappers to respond to diss tracks we all used to just wait around it's like how people used to play chess through the mail jay -z versus naz does not fit perfectly into any particular rap feud binary art versus commerce fact versus fiction pure charisma versus pure technical ability everything is blurred everything
is negotiable they switch places arbitrarily but i will say that it's jay -z's swaggering vocal tone you ain't live it that really pops for me on TakeOver, and it's Nas' barrage of ultra -violent internal rhymes I embrace y 'all with napalm blows up, no guts left, chest, face gone that really pops for me on Ether.
The fact that, obviously, Nas also has world -historical swagger and Jay -Z also has world -historical technical ability, well, that's why we're still talking about any of this.
To paraphrase John Goodman talking about the viet kong in the big lebowski what we've got here are two worthy freaking adversaries which does not unfortunately make every single line of ether a world historical bulletproof classic that this gazey and cockefella wreckage wanted beef started cocking up my weapon slowly loading up this ammo to explode it on a camel and his soldiers i can handle this Yes, alas Even in this, arguably still the greatest of rap feuds There is copious gay stuff Specifically, there is gay -z and cockefella records Nas is not doing his best work here Necessarily, alas I am
swerving around even more incendiary homophobic slurs that appear in both Ether and Takeover, alas.
I am swerving around some woman stuff as well, most notably regarding the mother of Naz's child.
You may recall that woman stuff, family stuff, mother of your children stuff, played a dismaying role in the Kendrick Lamar and Drake feud.
Twas ever thus. Alas, I'm compartmentalizing.
Yes, I am trying my best to sequester the gay stuff, et cetera, away from the fact that Nas also just insinuated that Jay -Z looks like a camel.
And Nas just pointed out that KRS -One put out an album in 1989 called Ghetto Music, colon, The Blueprint of Hip -Hop.
KRS -One is everywhere.
Biggie is everywhere, too.
We're arguing about Biggie here.
We're arguing about Legacy.
We're arguing about the power vacuum in hip hop writ large.
We're talking about who runs New York.
And yes, also, we're still doing gay stuff.
We're also still talking about who was doing what in 1988.
crib and i ain't even give you my numbers all i did was give you a style for you to run with i still like takeover better what does that mean what does it mean to prefer takeover to ether or vice versa is this an aesthetic judgment is it simply which song is better is it which song is meaner?
Is it which song is truer?
Kendrick Lamar likes Takeover better because it's truer.
In 2011, Kendrick told Vibe magazine, quote, I was riding with Jay because he was saying more facts, end quote.
Is it which song did more damage to the target's career?
But that's the happy ending here because did either song do damage in the Kendrick Lamar sense?
It is nearly impossible to reconstruct this particular feeling now that we know how everything turned out but in 2001 as jay -z and nas is transpiring biggie versus tupac looms over everything and the devastating ultra tragic end of biggie versus tupac looms over everything what if this all ends in more terrible violence but it doesn't and here in 2025 with nearly 25 years of hindsight both jay -z and and Nas win.
Their respective blockbuster careers continue.
Jay -Z's career is substantially more blockbuster -y, but never mind that now.
The ether people feel vindicated, and the takeover people feel vindicated.
I'm running long again.
These two gentlemen will collaborate down the road, most notably on a 2006 song called Black Republicans, but I wouldn't say that song song feels victorious.
The victory here for everyone is that the story basically ends here with Ether, with U36 in a karate class, which is still my favorite Ether line.
Maybe Ether is better.
Jay -Z responds to Ether very quickly with a song called Super Ugly, a diss track that is, in fact, so super ugly that Jay -Z's mom calls him and yells at him and makes him apologize and jay -z does and that's the end of this feud basically and i'm sorry but no punchline in either takeover or ether and for that matter no punchline in any other diss track in rap history is funnier to me than jay -z's mom telling jay -z to knock it off and jay -z actually knocks it off she wins wins.
Gloria Carter wins.
And therefore, everyone wins.
There you go. Because who is the real hero?
Is the real hero the person who wins the fight or the person who stops the fight?
Myself, I'm voting for whoever stops the fight.
But maybe that's just me.
And maybe that's because I don't like conflict.
conflict. We are thrilled to welcome the great Joel Anderson, senior staff writer at The Ringer, co -host of our podcast, The Press Box.
He's a former host of Slate's fantastic Slow Burn podcast. He is slumming it here today with us, and we are very grateful.
Joel, welcome. Oh, man, Rob.
No, thanks for having me, man.
I'm honored. I feel like I've been elevated.
it you know I'm a music pundit now so that's right this is a big moment for you I have to ask to start off uh Aether or Takeover who you got okay so it's kind of complicated um sure so kind of like how last year you know like Not Like Us is the more acclaimed song you know what I mean but I kind of like to listen to Euphoria and 616 in LA I think Takeover is the more enjoyable song for me to listen to like I like listening to it more but like if you're asking me which song landed the more devastating blow then I'm an ether guy okay all right yeah does that make sense it makes total sense because I
was going to ask you what your criteria is for a great diss track if it's like something that's enjoyable to listen to if it works as a standalone song or is it the meanest the most devastating you know within the battle and so I splitting those into I totally see that yeah so mean is really an interesting way of thinking about it because like i have a this is not about i mean i'm not a drake fan per se but like i had a real strong affinity for the story of adidon and like meet the grams right because they're really mean songs like when you think about it like they really get yeah they really
get to the psychology of that dude and i didn't mind seeing drake humbled but on the whole like i think i'm looking for something thing and i was i was thinking about this i was i'm looking for something that's akin to like a closing statement like in a case so it's like i want some bars you know what i'm saying i want you to wrap your ass off of course i want some facts you don't have to all be facts like you can lie a little bit that's fine yeah that's part of the deal some of my favorite rappers are liars are rick ross like a prodigy is a huge liar yeah huge liar doesn't matter matter um i
want some research so maybe a surprise or two like it didn't have to be like push a t revealing that drake has your child or something yeah yeah right but i want you know i want to i want some some background information like where did you go and so like really i want some really focused and controlled character assassination so it's like that's why i didn't like hit him up necessarily because i just thought it was incendiary but tooth park sounds out of control yeah yeah that's not really a research -based song as such no right and i mean it includes some potentially some lies i mean we don't
know you know i choose to believe i choose to believe faith out right okay yeah me too me too so if you're asking me like the history of of rap beef and the songs that kind of fit that like no vaseline by ice cube is sort of that like i see the bitch in you common response to ice cube dollars and cents dj quick against mca like you know you left out the g because the g ain't in you you know that's a line that i'll remember for the rest of my life south bronx you know boogie down productions lost ones by lauren hill i think that gets kind of overlooked that was really like i agree you know i don't
think people kind of understood at the time that that was about wyclef but it was like man whoever she's talking about out.
She's really reading him for filth.
It's devastating. Absolutely as devastating as any diss track you can think of.
So what is it about Ether?
What are the facts?
What are the lines?
Why is Ether to this day slang for you totally destroyed somebody?
What is it about this song that makes it so devastating?
That's a great question.
I think, and I have a friend, Bomani Jones, who says that it's clear that Ether was intended for an audience of one, right and so he really talks about you know i'm looking at the lyrics right here now because i'm help myself i'm an old man sure likewise you're talking about yo were you abusive child scared to smile they called you ugly like you think you're getting girls because your looks i mean i can only imagine and i'm not saying that jay -z's not an unattractive guy but okay i do think that that probably was a sore spot i mean people used to use to do caricatures of him as like joe camel
But for kids that don't remember Joe Camel.
Yeah, he does mention the Camel thing.
Right. Remember, it's the Camel thing, right?
Embarrassing him, just like, yo, why do you keep talking about Biggie?
You have your own career, you know?
Right. How many of Biggie's lines are going to come out your fat lips, right?
I mean, that is, first of all, it again gets back to the way that he looks.
And it's like, you should be able to stand on your own.
Why do you have to stand behind Biggie even now?
And the thing is, it's like not a lot of people remember this because Jay -Z is an old guy now.
And he has a very long career.
but if you go back and look at like the hawaiian sophie era like i mean it was kind of goofy yeah pretty rough he parachutes into that video if i remember correctly yeah it's not a great very dos effects foo schnickens and it's like clear that like jay -z was one guy when he came into the business and he's a different guy a few years later so it sort of speaks to the authenticity like nas has basically been the same rapper his entire career you know yes and he can speak to I mean, that speaks to something.
It speaks to his authenticity, like a comfort with himself.
Like Jay -Z clearly was trying whatever it took to get on in the industry.
So yeah, I think those are the things.
It seems like it's a very personal song, and it really hurts him.
And it's not like he didn't have to say anything about girlfriends, mothers, any of that stuff.
Right, right, right.
You know, it wasn't gratuitously mean, but it was very like, you've got problems with yourself.
That's why you've got a problem with me.
That's interesting you talk about authenticity because of course Jay -Z's argument like just the line from Takeover that always jumps out to me you ain't live it you witnessed it from your folks pad you scribbled it in your notepad and created your life like how much does it matter to you that you know Jay -Z in all likelihood probably had way more real world experience selling drugs or whatever like do you care about authenticity in that sense?
Not really I mean I just told you that I liked Rick Ross earlier earlier so authenticity is only going to matter but so much but I mean here's the thing both of these dudes grew up in 1980s and 1990s New York in the projects I mean if you're going to ask me about like which sort of authenticity these guys have I'm like yo they moved through a world that not a lot of people understand and look very difficult so it doesn't really matter to me and like it's not like Nas ever pretended I mean you know sometimes he does the you know especially especially during the It Was Written era, where he's like
the mafioso type stuff or whatever.
The firm, right. The firm kind of stuff, but, like, I think everybody sort of knew that that was, like, character acting.
Like, that was not Nas, like, trying to adopt the persona that Jay -Z had.
So I think that they both are authentic enough.
And, I mean, look, man, I am a, at the time when this song came out, I was a middle -class kid from the suburbs.
Today, I'm a middle -class father who lives in the suburbs.
Like, I mean, if I'm going to give you the edge based on you selling drugs, I'm like, what kind of fool would I look like?
I'm a middle -aged man.
Like, obviously I know that, like, that's one way to get through the world, but it doesn't mean that you're the toughest guy or the most authentic guy just because you sold drugs.
I think what they clashed over is very small.
It's just guys who don't get along.
They're just very different in a lot of ways.
They're from different boroughs, different backgrounds, different orientations to the world.
Jay -Z, the way I was thinking about it, Jay -Z learns about the world so he can learn how to make money from it.
You know, like he's looking for an angle, you know, he's like a hustler.
I mean, he describes himself that way.
He's like, okay, like how can I make, you know, how can I take advantage of the situation for myself?
How can I enrich myself?
It may sound goofy, but did you ever see the movie Belly?
Yes. It's been a while, but yes.
It's okay. So anyways, Nas plays this character, sincere.
Right. And at the end of it, like he really wants to go to Africa.
He didn't say what country, he didn't say what he wants to do there, but he wants to go to Africa.
You got to narrow it down eventually.
You got to narrow it down a little bit.
Yeah. Like Sierra Leone, South Africa, wherever.
But anyway, I think Nas learns about the world because he's a learner.
And I could just see both of these guys being in a room and just being like, I don't really like that guy.
This is probably for later.
so after they had done black presidents and there's this you know yeah in 2007 and they had this you know reconciliation or whatever and they interviewed them sitting next to each other and i remember they looked kind of awkward and they were like so the the interviewer was like um so you guys like you know are you friends now whatever and jc says well it ain't like we're gonna hang out or anything we're gonna you know i'm gonna call him up and you my buddy now and i was like that kind of said it for me like they're not the same kind of guy they're just different dudes right you know yeah yeah
yeah yeah so it makes sense that like they would not get along or that there would be some sort of rift somewhere down the line because they just fundamentally are different people and look at the world differently yeah and you mentioned biggie who i think is a huge part of that like they're arguing in part over you know there's a power vacuum like both in hip -hop at large and certainly in new york city you know in 2001 and then they're They're both, I guess Jay -Z is very, very explicitly trying to claim, you know, the throne now.
The city is mine. You know, do you see Biggie as looming large over this battle, both in terms of replacing him and both in terms of still sort of processing the tragedy of having lost him, you know, less than five years ago?
Yeah, no, I absolutely think that because, like, well, first of all, they're still really young.
Like, I mean, I can say that now as a guy in my mid -40s.
Nas is 28, Jay is 32, which is old for then, but, you know, as a rapper, but it's still young to me now.
And so that is really fresh news.
Like, that is the loss of one of their peers, one of their colleagues, and they both openly mourned him in their own ways.
and it's hard I'm sure for all these guys like Biggie basically died broke like he never really got a chance to cash in on all of his success and so I'm sure these guys are looking at the lost opportunities there an opportunity to take care of their mothers to make some real money like enjoy the lives and opportunities that are opening up you know hip -hop was still a very new thing when Biggie and Pac died and but like you know the opportunity movies to be uh you know cheat titans of the industry to do all these other things they want to do billionaires yeah man they're getting to pursue lives
that don't necessarily depend on the music industry so I think they were cognizant of the fact that there was a lot to lose but also they're like yo like Biggie was you know even though he only had two albums that you know at the time of his death I mean they looked at that and they said well that guy's universally regarded as the guy here in New New York.
There's a spot open at the top.
We're the guys that are up next.
And I sort of underestimate it, what a competitive spirit might lead to in that regard, right?
They look at each other like, why can't I be that guy?
They're not going to collaborate and be like, you know what, man?
Maybe we could be the king together.
That's just how rap works.
So I definitely think that part of it, it was like, they see the missed opportunities, but then they also see the opportunity to be like, maybe I could be that guy.
Maybe I could be Biggie and take advantage of the stuff that Biggie got to miss out on.
Yeah. Were you a day one Jay -Z guy and a day one Nas guy?
Did you like both of them?
Did you see them in essence in competition with each other, like just yourself?
Yeah. You know, I didn't even really think of them as being in competition with each other, especially like with the West Coast. So ascendant at that time, like I'm graduating from high school in 96.
So that's like in the middle of the death row Tupac era.
Right. And And then shortly after that, it's kind of weird to say this, especially in light of the trial and everything that's going on.
But Mace was a big deal, too.
You know what I'm saying?
Mace was a big deal.
And I really liked Mace.
And so I'm just like, well, there's a lot of guys that could feel this void and could be in this hierarchy.
But if I have to choose, Rob, I was a day one Nas guy.
And I remember, this had to have been 94.
for I'm walking through the living room in my house and the world is yours the video for it comes on rap city and I was just captivated like I really remember just being like I was getting ready to walk past the tv to my bedroom and I heard this song and I looked at the video and I was like wow this dude is great like this is it just the song just hit me some songs just do that to you right and I think Nas is like at one point described himself as sort of like a journalist so Of course, that really hooked me.
Describing the world around him and taking an interest in the characters and the way that his community is built.
I was a rappity -rap backpack type of rap lover.
He was insightful and introspective in a way that really appealed to me.
There was a humanity to his rhymes and songs that I didn't necessarily see in Jay -Z.
It doesn't mean mean i didn't like jay -z i bought all of jay -z's albums too like i think i actually think i bought every single jay -z album every cd he ever released i bought it he appreciates that yeah yeah he i'm sure he i spent money on him you know i'm saying by the music but i was a day one nice guy because he just appealed to me in a way um in a way that jay -z just just didn't and still doesn't to this day which which doesn't mean that i can't appreciate his greatness but like nice felt like somebody that i could actually know he felt accessible yeah it feels like everyone has an an Illmatic
or Illmatic era story like that right and I did want to ask you about this idea that like Illmatic is so great so deified just grabs you so immediately that it's like it's something Nas is struggling to overcome for the rest of his career every album he makes no matter how good he's going to get compared to Illmatic you know Ether is on an album called Stillmatic like it's it's with him in real time he's doing sequels to the songs on Illmatic you know do you do you buy into this idea that the record his first record is so great that it turns into sort of an albatross in a sense yeah you know i
i do think that at least at first because like ilmatic is clearly a monster and i'm i don't does this even matter to kids anymore when people say that it was one of the very few albums that got five mics from the source magazine it matters to us and that's what's important i just that means i don't want to deal with what the kids care about right now i just the minecraft we are talking about a time before their time right leave it right several times before their time at this point unfortunately yes yes oh my god didn't really feel it matters it does matter it and it did matter at the time and it
was influential in so many ways like i mean you could have pete rock and um dj premiere on the same album like a lot of people weren't doing that at the time yeah but as i explained recently to a room of people that booed me recently um let it literally happen people booed me for saying this i don't go back to illmatic like i do even it was written or i am or the lost tapes or even life is good it's just not like illmatic at the time sounded years ahead of its time and it listening to it transports me to that time but i also think he's made really good sometimes better music since then and i wondered
if he'd like other folks to acknowledge that you know what it makes me think of rob so um i remember buzz bissinger the writer talking about the pressure that came with trying to live up to friday night lights um and friday night lights is right you know maybe one of my two or three favorite books of all time and he says something like i reached a point that i hated hearing about friday night lights uh i hear about it all the time and i still hear about it and he's like i've written other books right right i just wonder if for naz like it was kind of an albatross like you suggested it's just like
yo like i still did a lot of other good music um i'm still a working artist i've done things since ilmatic but it's just the shadow of that and how great it was and the way that it hit everybody at the time it's just like it's gonna hold a place in in in the in the history of the genre but i don't know if it's fair i don't know if it's fair to him put put it that way.
Doesn't seem very fair.
Who booed you? Who booed you for saying that, Joel?
So, yo, I was at a, so again, I was talking about my friend, Bermondi Jones.
I was in New York a couple of weeks ago and he did like a live show.
So there's a bunch of people in the room or whatever.
And I use Illmatic as an example for why I thought Sade was boring.
I was like, I can appreciate how good the music is, but you don't see me sitting around on a Thursday afternoon listening to Represent.
You know, I don't even think New York state of mind is the best New York state of mind that Nas has released.
Like, I think the part two that he puts on I Am is better than the original.
Right. But again, I'm not trying I'm not trying to shit on the original.
And that's just the way I know.
I get you. Sure. But I said that in a room full in New York and from a room full of New Yorkers.
That's tough. You know, that's a tough stuff.
It was tough crowd.
All right. Well, I'm relieved you survived that experience.
okay so what do you got out of new york's you lived to podcast again i what do you get out of new york state of mind part two you know that you don't from the original what do you get out of it was written that you don't get from elmatic it sounds a little bit more contemporary it's not the production i mean this is going to sound crazy given all the legends that were on the first one but the storytelling i thought in part two was really cool you know it was just like he talks about going going through all his home boys as they die or go to prison or whatever and i'm the last one standing and and the production on that one
just hits me a little bit more it's uh it sounds a little bit more of today's time it sounds a little bit more contemporary than the original one did yeah it was written man i mean it had shootouts on it it had live rap it had you know i mean there was some duds on there but i really i thought it was a much more upbeat beat song to have in your at the time cd player than the olmatic it just seems a little then for you didn't feel a little more roast or like a little like kinda all right it's good for a cloudy dreary day there's no if i ruled the world on ilmatic you know there's not there's no i
gave you power on ilma oh my god you know i gave you power it's a great song dude yeah yeah okay no i i guess yeah so again like i mean i like i don't want people to take from this i don't like ill manic i just like it less relative to the other music he's released that's all all right something i thought about when kendrick and drake were going at it it sounds like you came into that with maybe an anti -drake you know vibe that's a little fair and so i was wondering i to the best of your memory like as this jay -z nas thing is happening like are you on the fence at all Paul, ever in a rap battle,
are you sort of an undecided voter and like you can be swayed to one side or to the other?
Or do you ordinarily go into it with an idea of who you're rooting for and you're not going to veer off that?
It would have been really tough for me to go against Kendrick because Kendrick is maybe my favorite rapper of all time.
So I was I was already sort of poised to be like, all right, whenever Kendrick drops, you know, I think I could have. i think i could have been uh honest about if i thought it was a dud like i thought family matters was a good song like when drake was family matters i was like damn right he got some shots off on him but yeah i think it's definitely possible to be sort of a neutral party oh for instance i felt bad for meek mill you know like when drake went after meek mill yeah yeah and i really liked me at the time and i was just like oh he's just not he's just not not capable of defending himself against
Drake. He doesn't have the memes, man.
Yeah, right. Right.
No memes. He's out his depth here.
Yeah, he's just not capable.
And it made me feel bad for him.
And I would have been inclined to have thought that Meek Mill would have, A, done better.
But also, I would have been more inclined to prefer his music.
But that's just not what happened.
But the Jay -Z and Nas thing, it's weird, because Kendrick and Drake is in, arguably, a battle between 1 and 1A.
like they're the biggest most enduring stars in hip -hop right now whereas jay and nas was like more unsettled even though they were like surefire hall of famers right like you could have argued at the time that like dmx or eminem were as big as hip -hop stars as them right this is 2001 you know this is the marshall mathers lp absolutely we're very early like jay -z has been a rapper uh with with albums out for five years at this point.
Five years, right. By comparison, Kendrick and Drake have got 15 years of reps.
It's like a Mayweather Pacquiao that lived up to the hype.
Well, man, are they actually going to get in the ring?
Oh, they did, and this shit was incredible.
Nas and Jay -Z are like Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns.
It's still a great fight, but they still had more to accomplish in their careers, and they moved on.
They had made all the money they were going to make.
like Jay -Z and Beyonce aren't even a thing yet.
Right. No. Like just think about how big a deal Jay -Z goes on to become after all of this.
Right. So yeah, man, it felt big, but it didn't feel big in the way that Kendrick and Drake did at all.
I don't think like, do you think a lot of people even knew who Nas was in 2001?
Like if you, if you're a rap fan.
Yeah. But I mean, is it the kind of thing that would be the subject of talk shows and, you know, could Nas have gotten the Superbowl halftime show as a result of ether?
or i don't think so right no absolutely not i mean that's what makes not like us so astounding you know the super bowl you know it's an oscar joke like it just crosses over you know both in like the pop chart sense but just in the mainstream sense you know of your parents having some idea that a rap beef is occurring like just that's that's completely i got it i i hope i'm not not overlooking but that seems pretty unprecedented to me you know I think so too well I mean you talk about parents my mom and dad still know they know about the kindred drake thing you know what I mean like they yeah they
are at least somewhat aware of what happened and how it was the kindred came to perform at the super bowl this past year um I don't think I don't think my mom knows what ether means you know and she keeps she keeps up with pop culture pretty good but i just i don't sure penetrate in quite the same way yeah okay i guess we're a little early to see you know what the fallout from not like us like the long -term damage to drake's career but do you see any you know if it's ether if it's takeover it's anything like did this beef hurt jay -z or nas in any significant way or is it one of those things where it
helped both of them ultimately oh man I mean, don't you think they both came out of it better for it?
Especially Jay -Z, the guy that lost. So during The Beef, he made The Blueprint, an album that seems to be like a real inflection point for him.
He becomes the rapper that he'd been claiming to be for years on The Blueprint.
After The Beef, he makes The Black Album, which I think is his best album.
I agree with that. Yes.
Yes. Some people really like the American Gangster 444 is like this real cultural moment.
Right. And then like as a cultural figure, I mean, just shit.
I mean, Jay -Z won, dude.
I mean, there's nobody bigger.
There's not a bigger rapper than Jay -Z.
He married Beyonce.
He's a billionaire.
Like he programs the Super Bowl halftime show.
The first rapper to be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Like he's the standard by which all other great rappers will be measured for.
He's he's Jordan. Like he compares himself to Jordan all the time.
Yes. It doesn't matter if you really believe he's the greatest or not.
He's the standard. People will measure themselves by that.
Nas is kind of different.
Because even though he won The Beef, his career is a lot more uneven.
God's Son was a good album, I guess.
The Street Disciple, all right.
Hip -hop is dead. Hip -hop is dead.
Has some stuff on it.
Untitled? Does he have an Untitled album?
He did have the Untitled.
It had fried chicken on there.
That was the song. Oh, good.
is that the one or is that yeah and then like he did that album with damian marley right right i forgot about that one the thing that i think that uh that's cool about nas though is that like it seemed like it freed him up to be an artist and like just do stuff you know what i mean like he's like he's released his albums every year now still like he's still a working musician king's disease now in stores magic magic magic 2 magic 3 yeah Yeah.
Like he's still doing it.
And then, I mean, he made a shitload of money, man.
But I don't know if the beef had anything to do with that, but it certainly seemed to reorient his career.
Like it just put him on a different path.
He was never as big a rapper as he was after Ether.
But he still like figured out a way to like maintain his credibility as artists, still make a lot of music and make a lot of money, not necessarily through music, but he made a lot of money.
so right yeah i think that the the the beef elevated them in a way it didn't end anybody's career i mean and the thing about it too is it like only a few people's careers get in about beef like jar meek mill i was thinking of jaw rule and i feel bad but i say sad well not really he did the fire fest that's on him you know yeah that's right yeah 50 cent had hit on something there little flip uh as a houstonian i'm a houstonian little flip his career never recovered from ti right maybe easy e i mean you know it's tough to say because he never really got a chance to like yeah you know he didn't live
much longer after all of that but in the moment it seemed like damn how do you recover from that you know so but yeah they're both so good so great that clearly the beef elevated them i don't think it did anything to hurt their careers it only helped yeah uh just to wrap up i meant to talk way more about this but like the line on ether like eminem murdered you on your own shit you know and naz is of course talking about renegade which is on the blueprint you know there's a really fantastic eminem verse on it and so i let's settle this right here joel like did eminem in fact murder jay -z on jay
-z's own shit you can and decide so no but i do think eminem push toes like like listen to that song and the storytelling in it like i'm awkward i box lefty and often my pops left me and often my mama wasn't home like it like it was jay -z dropped some shit there man yeah he came he came hard like i don't like like at a minimum, it was a tie.
And if Eminem beats him, it's like, he, he barely edges them out.
But, um, I think people that say that he got murdered, they kind of, it's like when I was talking about like, not all, uh, disses have to be true, you know, not all the songs have to be true.
You can have a few lies in there.
The line from Ether that actually had real heft to me was compared to Beans Your Whack.
Cause I thought Beanie Siegel was really good.
I was like, man, yeah be wrapping his ass off he's good as jay right now isn't he you know so uh but that seemed truer to me than eminem murdered him on his own shit okay eminem tied you on your own shit just doesn't have the same ring to it i guess you have to in quite the same way no you have to lie sometimes that's that's what we've learned here today all right joel this has been fantastic oh man look man my pleasure man anytime have me back anytime dude We will.
We will. Thank you so much, dude.
Thanks very much to our guest this week, Joel Anderson.
Thanks, as always, to our producers, Jonathan Kerma, Bobby Wagner and Justin Sales.
Thanks to Olivia Creary for additional production help.
And thanks very much to you for listening.
And now, sure, let's all go listen to Ether by Nas.
We'll see you next week.
