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Nas In Conversation with Rick Rubin

Published Jan 19, 2021, 10:00 AM

Nas dropped one of the most universally loved rap albums of all time in 1994 with Illmatic. Few legends in Hip Hop have been able to maintain their relevance over several decades based on their skill alone. Nas has never chased headlines or crossover success. He’s always seemed focused on elevating his craft and the culture. And that dedication has paid off. King’s Disease is Nas’ 12th album, and earned him his 14th grammy nomination. It’s up for Best Rap album at this year’s awards. Rick Rubin connected with Nas over Zoom recently to talk about his earliest experiences with rap in Queens, how recording his last album with Kanye West in Wyoming almost took him out of his zone and how early beef with Jay Z made them both stronger rappers.

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Pushkin, Naz dropped one of the most universally loved rap albums of all time with Illmatic. Since releasing that homage to the gritty streets of his childhood home, Queensbridge, Naz has remained one of the greatest mcs of all time. I made the fade, famous to change, Famous, Jubio man, chess mast, stainless, amazing, grace, imbraceably aged. With a few legends in hip hop have been able to maintain the relevance over several decades based on their skill alone, Naz has never chased headlines or crossover success. He's always seemed focused on elevating his craft in the culture, and that dedications paid off King's Disease as Naza's twelfth album and earned him his fourteenth Grammy nomination. It's up for Best Rap Album at this year's awards. Rick Rubin connected with NOAs over Zoom recently to talk about his earliest experiences with rapping queens how recording his last album with Kanye West and Wayoming almost took him out of his own and how early beef of jay Z made them both stronger rappers. This is broken record liner notes for the digital age I'm justin Richmond. Here's Rick Rubin with Nasty Nos. What's going on? Legend? Everything's well? How are you, sir? Yo? This is It's an honor to talk to you. Man the same. It's my pleasure always anytime I get to see you, it's a good day. Love man. Tell me about the music in your house when you were growing up. Huh, My mom was playing What's you Gonna Do with My Loving that? Stephanie Mills, Patty, you know all the records that was out, Like I remember the early eighties records, and then my pops was playing a wide range of of things. He had everything from the radio station with Wolfman Jack. He had fail and things like that, you know, Jazz whatever, Lionel, Richie whatever, all those early eighties records, early seventy nine. I grew up at right around that time when like the these are the breaks and rappers delight. I was young, but I was absorbing that stuff. Would you say that the music in that your parents played was reflective of the other music that the kids in the neighborhood would be hearing. Are not necessarily not necessarily you think because of your dad's jazz background, Because the kids a lot of the kids parents, I think were younger than my parents. A lot of my friends parents most of them were younger than my parents, and they were playing the music of their time. I think my pops, my pops, he's from Mississippi, you know, and he get he got everything that was going on out there and what they were playing with the other people parents that uh and the radios was playing. But we didn't play that in the house all the time. Now, It wasn't like I didn't own all of those records. When I started buying records, it was it was like I was the record buying the house. He had jazz records, but in African records and stuff, but it wasn't a lot of music like you would think. Do you think that um, having those influences affected your both appreciation of music and the way that you wrote going forward. Yeah, because the sounds was like disco and R and B was was a thing. And the songs to me, they were like, um, they were rap songs before they were rap songs like over like a fat rat and um, you know Evelyn Champagne king. To me, they you know, we would move our head to it, like you know, that's the jam and that. So when I wanted to you know, when Sugarhill Gang had the the Good Times record and they flipped it, it was just rapping. I tried to rap like them. I tried to I tried to rap like Um Um Curtis Blow. So that's that's when I first started to feel rapped like Curtis and Um and those guys. Tela rocking them, your guys, was your first experience of hip hop music from those records? Or was it in the park first? It was a combination of both. It was a combination because when I was a kid, I would hear all the guys talking about, you know, who was at the center last night, and the community Center at night turned into I guess like a club or sometimes you know, and in the park a lot of guys would come out there. I would hear all of these rapped legends were in the park and and hear all these stories. So yeah, it was definitely in the park, but it was a combination as a park. And then somebody's radio describe more about like the the what was going on in the park and what was going on in the community center. Paint the picture and I just love to imagine what you saw, all right. So with the community center parties, I was definitely too young for that. I would see all the people going dressed up. If it was winter, they had the sheepskin coats on. They would excite it like I thought they were going to some big play. I don't know where. I didn't realize they were going right to the community center, right in the neighborhood, because you're talking, I'm talking eighty three eighty five, you know. And in the park they had, you know, people would come there and they have like set up a stage like I don't know, the city would have people come out there, set up a stage and do shows Like I'm looking at people in costumes and stuff like that. Just wild stuff I would see in the parks. And then the jams will happen. When when I got when they got to the park jams, you know, my moms didn't want me to go over there. So we could hear it from across the street. We could watch them, even help them carry records. You know, you know you're gonna throw a part, You're gonna throw a jam. We see them coming through the block with the equipment. Get out the way, look, get out the way kids and we want to We were excited seeing this happen. They were homemade speakers, all this um um the wires where they would uh take electricity from the street lamp and and and plug it up to the equipment outside and watch the cops ride around to make sure everything was okay, tell them to turn it down, and then they leave, and then they turn it back up, and the cops just got tired of messing with them. They just let it, let it play so um. And then I got a little older. I think it was like the end of the community center. I remember, Um, they're being MC battles in there is mcs from my block. Um, the illmatic mcs. They were from my block, you know, Sudan and these guys who I looked up to, who who were really good at what they did. I would I would listen to them wrapped here and there. But um, how much older were they than you? I want to say maybe five years maybe with five five note because then I was like maybe about six seven years. Some of them are little older. But Jeff Rod from my building was known for doing needle lifting. You know, he didn't even have to he just knew where to lift the needle. It wouldn't. I don't even think he had headphones on. He just knew and he was legendary for that. The Old Brothers were in my building. They made speakers that was so big they just would rattle the building, and they won the first floor and I was on the fifth floor, but we enjoyed it. It It would rattle the building. But because the speakers were so big, they couldn't even get him through the apartment door to take outside. But the sound on it was incredible. It's amazing the home grown aspects of the hip hop culture that most people don't know about. You know, most people experience if they come from somewhere else, if they weren't from New York at that period of time, they experienced it as you know songs that came on the radio. But there was a whole culture and life around hip hop music where it's the music was just part of it. There was so much to it right right, definitely, there was so much to it. And you know, the style of clothes everyone was wearing because at the time, you know, pumas and all these different sneakers was getting taken off your feet like if you had if you had a fresh prayer of sneakers on and you come to that park, jam, I'd see somebody running. I see people want your sneakers, like just to you know, that's so funny. I was talking to somebody the other day, how everybody's iced out now. It's so much better now. You couldn't even wear a gold name plate back in those days, just a regular goal thin nameplate like Rais or blade thin on your on your net. You couldn't even wear you We'd have to watch where you go some places with that. So all of that added to it. It put it was in the energy of the music. I think when did you first start writing? I think um, early eighties. It was rest in peace to my man Andre Herrell. I would tell him this all the time, him and his guy in the group, doctor jackoman Us to hide. They they had a story mister shark in the ocean, can you find my magic potion? And I was like, wait, how did the story start here? And then help me that well, I don't know, but you know Slick Rick with Lottie Dotty, So those those those people made me like, you know, even uh my man Mellie mel and Raheemu Raheem's verse on Um the Message and Mellie mel the way closes it out. Um those though, they would like put pictures in my mind, and I was like, all right, I can write from that perspective. You know, all these guys, did you did you know that it was something that you wanted to do, like that you were going to dedicate your life to it. You know, I didn't know it was really possible to really get into the rap game. I know I wanted to. I know I could picture myself in it since I mean since I first started hearing rap. You know, I know I could picture myself in it. I would hear like tapes by the Cold Crush Brothers, but not really paying attention because even though it was the most popping tape out to me, I can hear the time in their voice. I can hear the time and the beat, the sound. I knew that it wasn't for me at that time. I said, end time will be my time. But I didn't pay too much attention to those tastes because I felt like it's like trying to play a kid. Frank Sinatra, who I love now, but it's like I don't get it, but you get older, you get what they meant at the time. But those were the times I would hear a little bit of bits and pieces and still, you know, try to emulate that. What was the first the first record that you heard where it's like, oh, this is this is not the older kids music anymore, this is my music. I mean I knew it when I heard the breaks. Cut your hands, everybody, if you got what it takes by Curtis Blow, Curtis Blow, and I want you to know that there it was grown folks music. It had a disco sound, but the way he commanded your attention on the song, I knew and like he didn't have to be a singer to demand that type of respect that a singer would demand on a record. The way he spoke, his pronunciation, in what he would do with his voice, and the breakdowns of the song would make me go, Okay, this is this could this is a big record. It's not an underground record, it's not a mixtape, it's a it's a record record on a label that's known. What was the record label, um Mercury, I think Mercury exactly. That was a known label. So that's what I knew, Like Okay, this thing is a real record. How did your parents react to hip hop? My pops was was cool with it. My mom was cool with it too, but I guess she didn't want me and my brother to grow up to be like, like, you know, too hard whatever or two hoodlums or you know whatever they called it back then, and show I would repeat. You know, a son said, Daddy, I don't want to go to school because my teacher's a jerk. She might think I'm a fool, and all the kids smoke griefa. I think it'd be cheaper if, you know. She's like, what you know what I'm saying, and she's like, Nah, that ain't that ain't for you. But I'm like laughing. I'm like, it is because we're all we're all little kids, not supposed to be singing these songs, but they're so dope around each other. We say we're singing, we're singing the message. You asked your dad to play on your first record. He played trumpet on your first records? That correct, right? How did that come together? Like the idea of you'd never hear a solo on a hip hop record, How did you know to do it well? Because it's pops, you know, mister Olu Dara. He is before my time musically, of course, but now here it is. I am with a record deal with Columbia Records. I'm like, yo, yo, this is so cool. Your son's on Columbia Records, rough House, Columbia, I have an album. This is a dream that we could do something together. So I called him, you know, and I told him when he got to the studio, I said, play what reminds you of me and my brother and our family when we were kids. Just play whatever that feels like to you. Beautiful and uh, he played that beautiful. We'll be right back with more from Rick Rubin and Nas after the break, We're back with more of Rick Rubin's conversation with Nas. Tell me about getting signed. Tell me about the feeling of what was going on, what you had done at that point, and then the excitement of that moment. Man, it was. It was a moment that I felt like it was coming. I felt like it was it was possible, um and when it came, I felt of course, of course, I'm like, I'm happy, you know, beyond happy, because I'm I'm with Columbia Records. Now, I mean shout out to Chris Schwartz and Roughhouse, shout out to Faith Newman who signed me. Shout out to MC search who helped put that deal together. And I was happy to be involved with so many creative people like those people I named, people who are to me vets in the music business. So I felt like I was gonna be kind of protected with you know, just with the tutelage and from these guys. I felt like I was in a safe situation. So it was it was like a super dream come true. It was it was like, this is what we all looking for right here, and it's happening great. And tell me about the making of the first album, the process of it. The making of the first album was like now things are real. Now the studios are real. Now Out had worked in power Play studios with Lars Professor years ago before, well like two years before I actually got a deal. I've been in power playing. That's a serious place. But now it's here, my budget, my album for me, not just hanging out with Lars Professor. So now I'm here in the house of Metal chun King. Now I'm I'm looking at these plaques on the wall and all these great artists and the studio is real. The engineer, I never met him before, but he's about to be in my life now and I'm learning from him and he's learning about me at the same time. So I kind of like a fish to water because of the previous experience with Las Professor, and he's telling me not to pop your ps so loud in the microphone. He's telling me how to even stand at the microphone. So I had some experience, and then I was working with him also, so it was like we were both happy because he was a wild pitch cool label, but now here I am on this major label. So we would kind of smiling, laughing, like Okay, this is the way it's supposed to be. So we went to it like like we was waiting from two years ago to now I'm eighteen. I got this deal, It's go time. It was like we just went and the were the songs written before you went into the studio. Tell me about the process of getting the material together. Yeah, half of the half of the material was already done. And when I got to the studio, when I when we started to record, I came up with a lot of things right there on the spot as well, but I would say about fifty percent was wrote. And might you write without hearing a beat? Or we're do you always write based on a beat? Back? Then I wrote to different beats, Like whatever I thought was a dope record out, I would get the instrumental and just sloop that and right to that, like whoever's record that I thought was hot. And then when I went to the studio, I would find the timing of the rhyme to that beat, to the new beat, my actual beat. I would find which rap had the timing that would blend in that beat, right understood. So you typically write to a beat that would be not the beat that we hear on the record, But then you would find a beat that would work, a new beat that would work for something you already wrote something else exactly cool, And some of it I did get the tracks and write to it, Like um when Q Tip produced One Love, I did get that on cassette tape and took it home to write to it. I did get some of the tracks and right there in the studio, like with Premiere, I wrote some of it right there in the studio. Yeah, with lis my Man. Dj elis from my neighborhood. Who produced the song that my Pops is on Life's a Bitch. I wrote that right there on the spot. So some of it was just spontaneous. Others was like pieces of papers that I had just had a beginning, like maybe like six bars, and I like this six bars, and I match it up with another song. Another rhyme I had was probably had like twelve bars, and and then and then I would write the last you know, four or five bars or whatever. Would you always be writing? Would you always be taking notes in general? Yeah? Years ago when I was coming out of a teenager into like my early twenties. Yeah, then I then just everything just roller coast. So tell me about the experience of going from really starting from essentially nothing. Not really you came from the very beginning, and you built yourself up to be the number one MC in New York No, like without question, and in your fantasy of what it was going to be like what your life would be like in success? How different is the reality of success versus the fantasy of success. It's strange. Um, you know, everyone has their own journey. Um. At times it was better than I imagine. At other times it was like what's going on? Like you know. Um, so it would it would change, it would change. Sometimes it would really feel like this must be like what you know. Stevie Wonder was feeling like, this must be like what what what? Michael was feeling like. You had those moments, whether it was like, uh, first time at an award show or meeting somebody you never thought you'd meet and they like you, those are those are really good moments there. So it changed. And then give me an example of something that you thought was going to be really good that turned out not to live up to them. I don't know, man, it was, Um, I don't know. It's certain. There's certain aspects of of certain people I thought would be different, and um, they were not the nicest people. But I appreciate the experience. Even though I looked at these people like I had to realize their human beings like everyone else. They have their bad days and their good days. Um, you know, realizing people are not superheroes really all the time. You know these people that you look up to people. Um, certain places I went to a smaller than I thought, like TV sets, TV stages, sound stages, or certain television shows or you know, things like that. Have you ever eaten four gro in real life, I have I have Okay, I'm just asking because it's it's a funny. It's like we think about rap brags and that might not live up to their actual I'm not a fan of foire gross I had. I tried it before. I tried it before, but I'm not a fan. It just sounds good. Yeah, it also does sound good in a rhyme like just the nature the words sounds good. Yes, it sounds good. Tell me about spirituality. Have you do you have a spiritual practice or have you ever in your life? Um, there's no real practice. Um, I'm just aware, you know, you're just aware that where where we're having a spiritual beings having a human experience and we're just there has to be more than here, you know. Um, And that energy is real and you just want to keep the energy around you. Um. Good and and and you want to keep because energy lives forever. In my mind, you know, I feel like we go on to see the big Man upstairs from here. So do what you do here matters. On the other side, also, how you how how do you handle your business? You know, if you have to do something that's not so great to get somewhere great. You know, you just hope that most high forgives you because we're all just on our own journey. So you have to realize that there's a there's karma and everything you do, so you try to keep that when nobody's perfect. You know, I'm not perfect. I'm not going to be you know, on point all the time. But you just hope that I try to stay in the right the right calma, the right energy. Has having kids changed your life big time? Big time? Yeah? I think my daughter saved my life. She she she I was really young when I had I was twenty years old, so I was I was a kid. So um, I think she she made me pay attention and say, you gotta be here. You can't just throw it all in a wind. You have to, you know, be cautious. You gotta be here. My son too, my son as well. Do you get to spend a lot of time with them now, Yeah, especially my daughter. You know, that's that's like my bestie. That's great, That's that's my homie right there. She's very she's busy in her life, but you know she's she's into a lot of things, cosmetics being one of those she has a company called lip Matic, and she's into the arts. You know, she's into all kinds of things. So she's busy. But we do get together. My son not so much. He doesn't live as close to me as her, But there's always a great time either way, you know, Beautiful. Tell me about you got to work with with so many of the great hip hop producers over the years. Just tell me about the differences between working with different people. Oh man, Um, when I work with say Doctor Dre, I hear he's he's recovering right now. Um. Prayers going out to him and his family. Working with Doctor Dre is someone who's right there, can create there on the spot, um, and there's no telling how far can go. He You you start with just one sound, and his his his ear is he's like he's like he's putting the sounds in a movie. It's that's that's the way I see him doing hip hop. And he just loves the most hardest shit you know, and he wants to make it happen as big as possible, make it sound as big as possible, as right as possible. Working with somebody like Havoc from Mob Deep, not only did I know him since we were little kids, you know, and we come from the same neighborhood, we're around the same age, and we grew up on the same sounds in the same city. So work with him is this really grimy stuff, hard stuff. And it's like his beats are talking to me and I can hear I could hear having spirit in the beat, and it's like it makes you really want to get down on the beat. Working with somebody like um Kanye, it's like, you know, this guy who can take he could do, he could do electronic, he could do so, he could do, he could do rock, he could do and his all, his all with his spirit on it. And you know, there's no there's no levels to how big it can go. It could just could go anywhere. Um. So everyone has a different approach to it because we all love this culture, we all love this this this art form, and we're all trying to make the stuff that blew our minds when we were kids. I guess do you remember the first time you heard an MC where you're like, whoa, this is something new and this is great and you were like excited about like someone taking it to a new place that you hadn't heard before. Um, there was a couple of times, but the one that comes to mind right now is Um the Educated Rapper from Utfo on the song Rock Sand Rock Sand And I liked that he was called the educated rapper. It was like he had this sona he had. He was a character almost, But with rap music, you're using words, So to be educated means he's got a plethora of words. So when he was just like, you know the way his flow was, and I said, wow, you know you can you could. There's many styles to this, but even the Fat Boys, even even cool Rock Ski and and and and um and my Man's you know what I'm saying. Um, they was like they had me trying to rap like them. So it was everybody everybody at that time, you know. But Shan also from our neighborhood, who could tell a story and take you right in, you know, songs like Jane Stopped this Crazy Thing, Um the Bridge that was our anthem, our neighborhood. UM. So so many different artists would bring you something that was different. You know. We'll be back with Nahs after the break. We're back with Rick, Rubin and Nas talking about why rap battles changed over the years and about the once famous beef between him and jay Z that led to some of the best disc records of all time. Was the Bridge the first battle record you heard? I think so, I think so. But there were there were a couple of disc songs out at the time. I think there was a Salt and Pepper disc too. Don't get me wrong. I'm my bad if I'm saying this wrong. It was all in fun back then. But it was like a like Salton Pepper I think had something against Dougie Fresh and to get Fresh Crew and so I had heard, but nothing with the magnitude of the Bridge South Bronx, the Bridges over kill at noise, nothing like that ever. And would you say that that was like two teams, like rival teams sports teams. Definitely, definitely. I mean it started with Rock San Chantay, you know, take my hat off to the Queen. Then she went after Utfo and you know it was it was on. But yeah, there was my hood and it was the South Bronx. It was Queen's Bread South Bronx, Queen's Bronx. But the Boroughs were all they was all gunning for the top spot in New York. So you had the Brooklyns in the House record. Um, you know you had your you had your everybody Komode and Harlem. Um, you had the Bronx, you had you know, so everybody was just trying to be that number one, that number one place. But it was always from a point of view of like out wrapping the other. In the early days, it never felt like there was any real beef. It was more like performance. It wasn't actually a fight. A fight would back then with me and you was the sole loser. You know, like back then it was like who's really the best at this? A fight would just make mess the whole thing. You weren't the best at this if you had to fight, right, if you was that mad about it to fight, you lost. So you would have to show improve with your with your talent back then, and that's that's what built That's what the legs of this thing is. Those guys who would competing with each other. Um. One of the most famous uh hip hop rivalries was between you and Jay back in the day. And what did it feel like, uh, you know, being the subject when you were the subject of a of a disrecord or a challenge. Was that justum proof that you were the top guy was at the What was the feeling of that? Yeah, it was all of that, and it was like the you know it just the auto M seeing was right there on full display. It was like, if you're in the rap game, this can happen a battle and it was like, that's this rap thing is real, Like a battle can really happen, you know. So I was honored to to have that part of my life happened because that's what that's how I saw the Great Stewart coming up. I saw some of the Great Stewart. It actually shed light on both of you. Like at the time, it felt like in the back and forth, it elevated everybody. Yeah, yeah, because it's again it's about the art of MCing and when you're when you're trying to UM make the best stuff you can make, and do you bump heads with another MC and then you guys have a war whatever. That's that's that's what this art form was was since the beginn just double trouble and and busy being cool. You know. But that's what I like about hip hop compared to other genres is that they go at it in hip hop, you know, like really at it, not to say that other rockers didn't go at it, Other reggae artists didn't go at other schrooners didn't go at it. But the hip hop will always be around, I think because of how competitive it is. Well, it's the last time you were in Queen's Bridge. Um, I did my last I did to not see a album with Kanye. I did the party there and then did the after party and the actual projects because we were under the bridge for the album released party and then went inside the projects where I went inside the projects and party hung out all night. How did it feel? What were the memories that came up when you were there? I mean, I do it. I do it from time to time. So usually I go there, kids are not up. I go at night and I hang with the fellas. We don't put it on camera, we don't tape it, but countless nights I've been there. So it was just another night. But this night was great because underneath the bridge there's where those legendary artists you would come to when I was a kid, and we kind of had it in the same area. So it was I was like lifted up to another consciousness and everything a spiritual feeling. Happened. I felt like I was doing what was right in the community for the art of it. And you know, it's years later. I've had parties everywhere for our release parties, but to have one in my neighborhood, you know, for the not said album was great and to go hang out afterwards. I'm seeing people they got new names. I still call them their old name, and they got they got new names and stuff. You know, I remember when they were kids, but their name now is knockout, you know what I'm saying, or something like that. Um. But you know, most of the guys, I know their moms, I know their dads me and they their parents are still cool. Y'all can smoke a blunt with their kid who's now grown up and and and then to go have a drink with their dad, you know, two steps away in the whole same neighborhood. So and everybody's you know, I'm seeing people that are doing well for themselves, man. And that's the best, you know, because I mean people look at me like, um, probably like yo, he got out of here, but still comes back. You know. I have I have different things we do there. Summer camp. I do out there and take the kids out and other things cool. In the early days, lyrically, you talked a lot about what was going on around you in the hood and how as your life has developed and as you've changed your living conditions, how do you find what to write about? Like where does the content come from of what you talk about? I knew years ago that you know, moving away or wherever I was at, I had enough to write books. I had enough to write. I could have left the neighborhood fourteen and still had enough stuff because I had already been fed through what I saw at fourteen and what I learned in school, and what I read at home, and what I would love to watch on television, all of these things I'm watching growing up in New York. It gave me a piece of everything. So I wanted to write screenplays when I was young, So I was I was writing screenplays or trying to preteen just about you know. So I was already kind of like a writer. That was my little hobby that nobody knew about. So I knew that I'd be able to do it. So it doesn't matter where I'm at, where I live, you know. Although Wyoming was a was was kind of tough for me. It was a great getaway to work on an I say, an album, but that was I wasn't prepared like to for that. But I still got it done. But I could do it anywhere. It's really a different world. Like growing up in New York and going to Wyoming. It's like it's different, right right. Definitely. Do songs ever come based on a concept first? Or is it usually based on lines? I like, I like when when there's a concept before I even get started, because I get the concept and then I'm like, I'm eager to get it done. I'm like, when am I gonna go? When am I going to go in the studio? I can't wait to do this. I can't wait to get in there and do this song. I write notes down on my phone, so when I'm in the studio, I could just look at my notes and kind of just close my eyes and just say it. And that's how a lot of stuff comes up. Now I hear the music, and as soon as I hear it, I just start I start saying the first things that cut in my head. I don't write it down, it's just because it's too quick, So you just say it, you know, I've been doing it so long. You just say it, and that's how it comes together for me now, So it sounds almost like you write it automatically. The track comes on. You just freestyle essentially, and then do you go back and refine? I go back and refine. Sometimes it's not good. Sometimes I have to go back and write it. A lot of times, thank you. A lot of times though it's good because you know, if you're in a good mood or whatever the mood you are in, your energies up and you want to lay down some stuff, or if you're in a melancholy type of mood, you might write something that's not the most hyper flow, but it still gives you. You put your spirit on it and you say what you need to say. Is there ever a concept that goes through a whole album or is it usually more song based. I've done some concept albums, like the untitled album, the recent album King's Disease. It was just basically like, you know, I'm conscious now of all the things that we can do to hurt ourselves with too much, with being excessive, with if you're gonna have, if you're gonna eat bad. It's all in moderation. You gotta watch what works for you and what doesn't work for you. So, you know, not just the health thing, you know, being it's all about you know, a lot of us feel like we're kings. A lot of us ain't kings. A lot of us. Just because you're a man, don't make you a king, you know, I think king is uh. There's been some terrible kings and recorded history also, but um, you know you have to like in my from my perspective, you got to be a good guy, you know. So it's like taking care of yourself and those around you. How do you think you learned that? Because, as you said, there are some bad kings. Like how did you learn to be cool? That's a good one there, right, Um, I think I think I learned a lot coming up. I think people places and in situations just watching other people, watching it, life experiences where I saw myself doing things that wasn't right corny, you know, coming up, and I'm like mad at myself. Later, like you knows, I'm a team and I'm learning and I think I know it all. And you know, my mom used to tell me things and later I'm like she was right, Damn. I still say it to this day, to her life. She's not here, but I'm like she was right about this, and that I shouldn't have trusted this. I shouldn't have did this, I should have did that. But just just being grateful that I'm here, like you know, to alive, to to to being one of those guys, to come from where I come from and to be here. Um, I see which people, I see which people made mistakes. I see which people made mistakes, but it wasn't their fault, but their heart resented. So I still it's still honorable what they did. I start weighing things out and trying to see what did I want for me and what did I want to give back? And I always wanted to be somebody that could help somebody here, helps mighty there, and and just just because I want to see them reach their full potential, because I think that's what we're supposed to do. So that's the most important thing. That was it for me? Beautiful? How has your relationship to hip hop music changed from being a kid to now? I don't keep up. I can't keep up with the music today like I could back then. Back then, everything that came out was exciting, even the wax stuff. I would buy wax stuff sometimes and just stare at the albums and what label they were on and who produced this, and I would just want to understand it all. Now, Nah, I'm like nah. Sometimes now the things still hit you with that are like whoa, this is great? Yeah. Yeah, And most of the times I don't know who made those records, you know. I'm you know, when when the world was more normal, I was outside, I was at clubs, i was at parties, I was around, and I'm hearing songs that normally I wouldn't know just being in my regular life. You know, it was just it was the songs. I go, what is that? And I would forget to hit shazam, you know. So there's all kinds of songs you know that that hit me. I'm like, who is that guy? Like that guy? And as I'm starting to get into this guy, there's a whole new movement happening. And as I'm getting into this whole new movement, three more just started, so I figured I'll catch up to it when I get a chance. Yeah, it's an exciting time when there's so much new stuff. What were you thinking working on? It's Yours with Tila Rock. I think the main purpose of it was the feeling of the club, like what DJs were doing and drum machines and sort of the feeling of the hip hop club, which I relate to what you experienced at the park. It probably very similar, but the records that were coming out at that time didn't sound like that at all. So It's Yours was really just like it was almost like a documentary of what the club really felt like, right versus the records made by professionals who didn't really know what happened in the club. That was totally the sound and Tea Rocks rom schemes was crazy. What I always wanted an eight O eight rolland eight OW eight or nine O nine? Which one did you use on that? That was an eight o eight. That nine O nine is a little more like um, more like euro dancy. It's it's like a tighter sound was the eight o eight. It's more booming. And you were planning on doing a whole Tila Rock album or you don't know, probably, I mean it was so early in those days. Really all there were were singles. Hardly anyone had albums, so all there really were were twelve inches, and I remember Russell said, you know, I think this is going to be you know, albums is where it's hot, and I didn't. I didn't know that albums. You know, I grew up buying albums because I liked rock music. But it almost felt like what made hip hop hip hop at that time were twelve inches, you know, twelve inch singles, right, So I just thought it was a twelve inch single world. So I wasn't thinking so much about albums at that time, right. So with with Walk This Way, so you knew that at this point, Run DMC had become the biggest instantly the biggest rap group in the world. Um, there's still to me, the biggest best rap group that ever happened to hip hop. Um, you knew that with Arrowsmith that they had went as high as they could go, and Run DMC and raps high they can go, and they needed to merge or what. Nothing like that. Nothing like that. It was we'd pretty much finished the album without Walk This Way on it. And I remember I was at a dinner in California with a guy from a big record company who was like trying to convince us to come work with their record company, and he said, how can you explain the success of this music? How can you explain the success of rap? It's not even music, Like this isn't music. And I started thinking, it's like this guy's being nice to me, you know what I mean. He's he's he's trying to invite me in, and he's telling me hip hop isn't music as far as he can hear. So I see that there's this big disconnect between the people who are who feel hip hop and the people who don't understand it at all. And I was looking for something to bridge that gap. And because I started thinking about there there are these records that are not so far off, like you you mentioned one or earlier, you mentioned a record earlier that you're like, well, this is sort of a precursor to hip hop records, and like you could see, it's like, oh, this is like the roots of hip hop in this. So I just started thinking about records that were like rap, like vocals that somebody who didn't understand rap music would understand. And the first song that I thought of was Walk This Way, because like the verses of Walk this Way are essentially rhyme scheme versus but people know it as a rock song, So it was more as a bridging that gap so that people could see, Oh, this isn't I thought it was more different than it is. It's like this is something that's always been part of the language. It's just a part of the language. It made it like rock and rap are the same. They are the same, yes, and and they and their roots are really similar. It's like it's not so far different, right right, So that was that was the purpose of it. It really was just to like, and how howd the person not said that to me? I wouldn't have felt like there was this mission, you know, I had this mission of like, people are missing what this is. There has to be a way to explain what it is. Just musically you did that. He did that. Thank you for that. My pleasure, man, It's been a pleasure. Same love. Speak to you soon, sir Love. Thanks to NAS for taking Rick back to the Queen's Bridge of the eighties and nineties and reminiscing about the early days of himp hop. You can hear all of your favorite NAS songs on the playlist at Broken record podcast dot com. To be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record podcast where you can find extendicuts of news one all of the episodes. Broken Record is produced with helpful Lea Rose, Jason Gambrel, Martin Gonzalez, Eric Sandler, and our intern Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from Nick Chaffee and it's executive produced by Mia Lobell. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries and if you like Broken Record, please remember to share, rate, and review our show on your podcast. At a theme musics by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond bass

Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

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