31
the Gap
Nas tells Hattie Collins about
love, sex, friends, music and family
F
or over a decade Nas has been one of hip
hop’s most revered rappers. On his new
album the 31-year-old solidifies his position
with a double-disc that takes a step beyond the
realm of regular rap records and instead offers
a hearty helping of food for thought.
Since the beginning of his celebrated career some
eleven years ago, Nasir Bin Olu Dara Jones has sidestepped expectations, challenged the norm, thrown
away the rap rulebook. Granted, he may have delivered
his fare share of guns, ganja and girl-talk, but for every
Life’s A Bitch the gifted rhymer has offered up a Black
Girl Lost, a One Love, an I Can, or an If I Ruled The
World. And when he does deliver his bitter tales of
beleaguered street life, he renders the poetry with a
flare and forcibility rarely matched by any other. For his
seminal debut album Illmatic. However, it’s on the
new track Bridging The Gap that we hear the two
Jones men sharing mike space for the first time as Olu
sings the blues and his son rhymes them. “It’s the
total greatest experience in my life musically,” Nas says
simply, settling into a sofa at Atlanta’s Four Seasons
hotel. “The song itself is the best song I ever made.
It’s more soul, more real life than anything I’ve ever
done,” he says proudly. And it’s an important record
because there’s a lack of strong family structures in the
black community. In any community it’s a problem,
but in the black community specifically, fathers are not
around. Whether that’s due to alcohol, unemployment,
confusion, drugs, or whatever. So I felt it was an
important record for the family structure of America
and just a good father/son record.”
Nas’ new album takes a step beyond the realm of the regular rap
record and instead offers a hearty helping of food for thought.
latest trick, Nas is flipping the script once more.
Known for conceptual compositions like the chainof-thought Book Of Rhymes or the backward spat
Rewind, the 31-year-old recently achieved a hip hop
first by releasing a single with his father, Olu Dara. A
world-renowned jazz musician in his own right, Dara
initially lent his trumpeting skills to his son on Nas’
One of the standout lines from the song belongs to
Dara where he refers to the life lessons he has passed
onto his son. “I named the boy Nasir/ All the boys call
him Nas/ I told him as a youngster he’ll be the greatest
man alive.” Sentiments typical of Olu, says Nas, who
from birth indoctrinated him with an unshakeable
sense of self-belief, vital for growing up in the »