Nas & Hit-Boy: 10 Essential Tracks

With his classic 1994 debut, Illmatic, Nas earned respect as one of hip-hop’s GOATs, and plenty of essential albums, guest verses and battles since that LP dropped have carved his face onto rap’s Mount Rushmore. In the 2010s his musical output slowed, but no one could blame him; after all, he was becoming a business mogul with investments in Mass Appeal Records, Sweet Chick restaurants, a clothing line and various tech companies. 

In 2020 he connected with Los Angeles producer Hit-Boy — who’d built his reputation working on songs like “Clique” and “Ni–as in Paris” as in-house talent for Ye’s G.O.O.D. Music — for the album King’s Disease. Since then, with Hit as his copilot, he’s embarked on one of the best third acts in rap history. 

Artists with Nas’ longevity are constantly badgered to recreate music that harks back to when their fans fell in love with them — pleas to appease a wistfulness that new songs can never possibly satisfy. But in the best moments from Nas’ newer music, he mines his life experience for vivid memories that capture the spirit of earlier years more than the aesthetics; in other words, instead of simply replicating the sounds of previous rap eras, he recalls the feelings, characters and untold stories from those times. He employs the same luminous recollections and tricky flows that made him a generation-defining MC in the first place, but with gratitude for the lessons he’s learned and even the questions he has yet to answer. Hit-Boy is known for having an amorphous production style that amplifies his varied collaborators, but he consistently provides Nas with beats that are spacious, measured, soulful and impeccably matched to whatever God’s Son is bringing lyrically.

Nas’ prolificity is just as impressive as the quality of his latest music. King’s Disease earned him his first Grammy Award, for Rap Album of the Year, in 2021, and he’s since released three more albums with Hit-Boy, matching the speedy production that many new artists employ to stay on listeners’ radar. Each album is arguably better than the one that came before. Nas shrugged off Magic as a promo project, but it turned out to be one of 2021’s best, and this month’s King’s Disease III is easily the finest of the trilogy. (Ed. note: We might also be partial; TIDAL receives a shout-out on the track “Thun.”)

The MC, now 49, seems perfectly happy with his legacy as a prodigious lyricist who ran the ’90s and 2000s; he spent much of the fall on the road with the Wu-Tang Clan and Busta Rhymes for the N.Y. State of Mind Tour, performing the records that fans revere him for. But he recently announced a one-night-only show in February at Madison Square Garden, where he’ll perform the King’s Disease trilogy — a fearless gambit for any hip-hop artist, especially one with so many gems in his back pocket. 

This roundup surveys a handful of the strongest collaborations between Nas and Hit-Boy.

“Michael & Quincy”

One of the creative peaks from King’s Disease III finds Nas making a bold claim: that he and Hit-Boy are a tandem analogous to Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones. It may seem like a stretch to compare the 35-year-old Hit-Boy to the 28-time Grammy Award winner, but there’s no doubt that his chemistry with God’s Son is magical. That much is clear in the stunning second verse, where Nas stacks references to the Thriller duo with clever wordplay, name-drops and photographic evocations. 

“Wave Gods”

For decades fans have begged for a joint album from Nas and longtime collaborator DJ Premier, for good reason: The pair has made classic songs including “N.Y. State of Mind” and “Nas Is Like,” and they shared a Scratch magazine cover story in which they teased an album. The record hasn’t been released yet — though Nas says on KD3 that it still might happen — but Preemo does lend his signature record scratches to “Wave Gods,” and they’re a perfect addition to a nostalgic boom-bap soundbed by Hit-Boy. Nas trades fantastic verses with A$AP Rocky, while claiming that he and Hit-Boy are “like the new Gang Starr.” Another reference to a legendary duo, this time with half of the group lending a stamp of approval by way of collaboration. 

“Car #85”

On “Car #85,” Nas offers a lucid depiction of his years in Queens as a young teenager: running around with hustlers who told him to wait outside in the car as they made their dropoffs; visiting a girl who moved from Queens to the Bronx; and late-night trips to White Castle. Like any 15-year-old, he was trying to forge his identity: “I’m just trying to figure out who to be,” he admits. His hypervisual eye for detail — a hustler’s gold chain or his own Nike Air Trainer 3’s, hiding drugs in the car’s seat cushion — and using the car as a motif demonstrate his mastery. Hit-Boy’s lush piano keys and Charlie Wilson’s soulful vocals make the atmosphere even more palpable.

“Speechless”

Nas and Hit-Boy’s album Magic was as close as Nas has gotten to duplicating the aesthetic he perfected in the ’90s, and “Speechless” sounds like it was taken straight from that era. Hit-Boy’s production stacks up to Havoc’s eerie beats on Mobb Deep’s best records, while Nas ruminates on making it past the “27 club” and attempts to guide others on how to do the same. 

“Death Row East”

The East Coast/West Coast beef of the 1990s has been endlessly documented, sensationalized and mourned — and somehow, Nas still has stories to tell about it. On “Death Row East,” he recounts his attempts to meet Pac in Vegas to squash their beef, away from the media blitz, and reflects on just how tense those times were for all sides.

“Everything I know now, wish I knew back then,” he raps. “Like it was only so much time left/Before Makaveli the Don left.” It’s the type of story you’d hope to hear from Nas if you were lucky enough to kick it with him in a smoke session, but he put it on wax. In the end, it’s another reminder of how valuable artists like Nas are, in their ability to share firsthand perspective on such vital episodes in rap history.

“Rare”

As often as Nas has used his collaborations with Hit-Boy to revisit his childhood and his ascension to rap legend, “Rare” is an example of the two just showcasing their indisputable skills. Hit-Boy challenges Nas with several beat switches, and Nas takes on each of them with tenacious, varying flows that prove just how capable an MC he still is nearly 30 years after his debut. Detailed storytelling is always welcome, but there’s nothing like a rapper simply annihilating every instrumental that’s presented to him. “Musically I’m on Mars,” Nas gloats. “Walkin’ all over the beat, puttin’ my feet on the stars.” We’re grateful for the telescopic view.

“Full Circle”

Nas has revisited many of the crucial periods in his life and career, and one of them is his short-lived tenure with The Firm, his group with AZ, Cormega and Foxy Brown. “Full Circle,” from King’s Disease, reunites the four artists for the first time since the unit disbanded in the late ’90s. Instead of the mafioso rap they crafted on songs like their single “Phone Tap,” the three men of the quartet lament how they mistreated women in their younger years and share what they’ve learned in adulthood. Foxy, meanwhile, spits the same sort of flossy, guttural-voiced bars that helped her earn a spot in the group. As a bonus, Dr. Dre, who produced The Firm’s Album, lends a closing four bars that cosign Hit-Boy. The song is a bit jarring topically, but all of the verses deliver, and Hit-Boy helps to duplicate the vibe in a way that’s rewarding for fans of The Firm’s moment.

“EPMD 2”

Despite being one of the most sampled groups of all time, it still seems like EPMD doesn’t get the credit they deserve as rap pioneers. Thankfully, Nas has given them their flowers twice. Following up the original “EPMD” that appeared on the companion album to Judas and the Black Messiah, he taps Eminem and EPMD themselves to add verses that name-drop some of the duo’s signature songs, album titles and iconography while also celebrating Nas and Em’s success. It’s an homage to EPMD and to hip-hop itself that illustrates just how far the genre has come. 

“Legit”

One of the strengths of King’s Disease III is Hit-Boy’s sharpshooting sample choices, and “Legit” lifts key vocals from The Five Heartbeats, a 1991 film that pays homage to the greats of R&B. A vocal loop sung by the character Eddie King Jr. sets a perfect stage for Nas to drop the seamless flow of nostalgia, boastfulness and systemic observances that has made him one of the GOATs.