Yeah Nas is just like you automatically
knew. When Large Professor first played him
for me I mean, well I heard him on the [Live at] the BBQ but then Large played me his
shit like, I was like, "Cool this dude is
crazy," you know I'm saying? So I knew that
[Illmatic] was gonna be the impact it was.
When
he came in to work on Illmatic he came
with a whole big entourage of his boys
you know, he was all excited I'm sure
like, "Yo I'm gonna see Premier today," so
you know. They were more the young guys,
Jay-Z was more the younger
generation to me that, it wasn't like, "Oh
wow Jay-Z," you know? And I knew Jay
already
I met Nas prior too with Large Professor
and he kept telling me he was gonna be
ill and then like I said once I
heard him on BBQ he was right,
I was convinced. Every time Nas would go
in the booth he's like, "Yo all y'all come in
with me," and they'd go in the booth and
it's you know it's like 10 or 15 of them
all in there and it's like, "What are y'all
gonna do?" And if you listen to all the
records we did you hear all them in the
background like like you know on every
record, on "New York State of Mind," on
"Represent," they're all in the background
because they were all in the booth, lights off, passing blunts around,
they're all just gathered around Nas
while he just spits and and that was the
first time I ever seen something like
that. They weren't even there to do any
parts they just we're just there you
know. I mean we had like 10 headphones
all wired in just so they can listen
and be a part of it you know it was crazy.
He came out by the crib, at this
time I had a little setup in Phife's crib
in a basement so he came through him and
Akanelye and Large, you know, and we blew
a little something, it was summer or whatever,
and I was like, "So how you trying to
approach it?" He was like, "Nah god you know I'm
saying I'm just trying to get that shit
that shit that you be fuckin with God," you
know, very Nas, you know jazz man
type shit you know? I was like, "True,
true." I was like man and I just I just
started fucking with it like right there
and it was just instant he was like, "Oh
man yeah let's go with that," and when we had
the session and we went this was in
Battery, we recorded in Battery he brought
his book in and he just started spitting
that shit. He spit it in the room first for
everybody must have been about 10
of us in there and he spit that shit the
room was like silent and the speaker's
was rocking and he was just like "Ah!" like
splitting that shit over that shit I was
like man it was crazy. And I hadn't really
finessed the drums yet but when I heard
that rhyme he did it and then after he layed it
and I pumped the
drums up it was just right, it was just
like one of those perfect sessions
you
