TONIGHT
E-mail a friendNas
original airdate August 14, 2008
Nas' talent comes naturally, since his father, Olu Dara, is one of the jazz avant-garde's leading trumpeters. Born Nasir Jones, Nas is one of the artists who led the East Coast hip-hop revolution in the late '90s. His first major-label album, "Ilmatic," produced multiple hits and earned critical acclaim as a hip-hop classic. His latest release—and ninth album—is the controversial concept CD, "Untitled," which has been described as "an intense exploration of racial inequality in America."
Web exclusive extra. (4:47)
Full interview. (10:41)
Nas
Tavis: For nearly 15 years now, Nas has been one of the most critically acclaimed and outspoken voices in hip-hop, beginning with his heralded debut disc "Illmatic." The Grammy-nominated artist is out with a new disc, which, in addition to receiving strong reviews and a lot of sales, for that matter, has also kicked up a world of controversy, as you might have heard. More on that in a moment.
The new disc is called "Untitled," and features the single "Hero." Here now, some of the video for "Hero."
[Clip]
Tavis: How you living?
Nas: It's good, man.
Tavis: Good to see you.
Nas: Great to be here. Good seeing you, man.
Tavis: You been all right?
Nas: Yeah, pretty good.
Tavis: I owe you a huge - I don't know if I can ever repay you for this, but - so for all the - I have nine - I have to check - yeah, nine - I have nine brothers and sisters. I have seven younger brothers. So all these years of trying to be a role model, trying to do the right thing, going to school, trying to make something of myself so my seven younger brothers can have something to inspire them.
None of that did the trick. I had not really become anything in their eyes until you mentioned me on one of your records. (Laughter) And then all of a sudden, I'm all that.
Nas: Oh, man.
Tavis: Every one of them called me "Man, Nas shouted you out on one of his tracks." So, like, nothing else I did had mattered to them. You mention me in one track -
Nas: I'm glad that -
Tavis: - and now I'm all that.
Nas: I'm glad to be some help, man, you know? (Laughter) We all got to look out for each other.
Tavis: So thank you - thank you again for that, man.
Nas: All day, man.
Tavis: Now my brothers respect me because I'm on a Nas track.
Nas: I respect you, man.
Tavis: No, I appreciate that. So congrats also - when this thing came out, man, went to number one the week it hits.
Nas: Yeah.
Tavis: Did you - after all the controversy, which we'll get to in a second - after all the controversy surrounding this project, did that surprise you? Did you expect that?
Nas: It's not something that really surprises you, but it was something that I didn't know it was going to happen, because I knew with the content and I knew with just the album cover alone with the whip marks on the back, I knew there'd be parents that would be kind of nervous about allowing their kids to pick that kind of record up.
It's not just an easygoing, easy listening kind of record. So I didn't know what was going to happen, so we was happy, yeah.
Tavis: The sales of the project notwithstanding, was it - as you look back on it now, has it been worth the controversy that you've had to endure to get to this place with this project?
Nas: At this point with this project, it was like we're not in the biggest sales time for music, period. So the sales part of it wasn't the big thing for me. It was more like a risk. Like, I felt like a lot of people would actually walk away from me as an artist, whether fans or executives at the record company. There was a lot of talk about them dropping me from the record company for putting this out.
So sales was like - we knew someone would buy it, but I never thought - like, that wasn't the big thing about this. Yeah.
Tavis: Why, then, if you've already calculated that there's risk in your fan base, there's risk for your career, there's risk with your label, why take the risk, why roll the dice?
Nas: Because in music, I think it's important to roll the dice. Anything in life, it's important to roll the dice. You've got to challenge yourself all the time. And the artists that I grew up loving, I think a lot of the hip-hop fans don't really pay attention to how far you can go in the music career. The artists I used to love took chances, from Marvin to John Lennon to even Hendrix.
And people took chances and people said what they felt, like, when you first get in the music business you're excited to be there, you want to make records that everybody's loving. But after you got years in the game, you want to give people the real side of you, show people some character, and that's the stage I'm at right now.
Tavis: Do you think there - I'm not asking you to call names; I'm asking whether or not you think that in the game, in the business, that too many of the artists who've been around for a while now like you have gotten away from that notion, that concept of giving the real?
Nas: Yeah, man, life is good. It's yachts; there's nice cars. (Laughter) There's movie roles, there's a lot of - we've overcame, a lot of people feel like. But just in the middle of all that, just hanging out with a few of my friends, I just - you can't forget about the ones that didn't make it with us. And I don't want to say put the burden on your back to save everybody, because that's exhausting and it's nothing to play with.
But at the same time, we got a voice so let's talk about - life is good, but that still doesn't erase all the horror out of here, you know what I mean? So we can speak on that if we feel like it.
Tavis: Speaking of speaking on it, we jumped into this conversation speaking on it so fast because the controversy has been talked about so much and I didn't want to beat it to death. But for those who are watching right now who don't know what - it just occurs to me five minutes into a conversation I ain't said nothing yet about what the controversy was.
We've just been talking about the controversy that was. (Laughter) Let me back up now and explain what the controversy was. So I don't know if you can see this on the screen very well, Jonathan, but if you can get that CD - there you go. On the cover of Nas' CD, you see what are welts on his back, beaten into the shape of an "N."
The CD is - leave it up there for a second. The CD is called "Untitled" because what Nas had originally intended to call the CD was the word "Nigger." "Nigger" was going to be the name of the CD. He could not call it that - the record label wouldn't give him permission to do so. Huge controversy erupts; Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, everybody came after Nas.
So what you get on the cover is on his back these welts in the shape of an "N." Why, in the first place did you want to call it the word "Nigger," the CD?
Nas: I felt like a year - for a long time, hip-hop has been catching, like, the bad end of the stick. Everybody's after hip-hop, everybody's blaming hip-hop music for the crimes in America, for so much. Hip-hop gets thrown in one basket, no matter if there's a great artist here, there's a good genius here, there's a Kanye West here.
If there's one bad apple, then everybody gets thrown in that same basket, and then they kind of act like we don't have responsibilities. There's no genius in rap, there's no entrepreneurship that's, like, on the next level. There's no - we turned the tables, man, and I think we've been catching a bad rap so much. So we've been asked to be more responsibility, even on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" and things like that.
And I felt like there's a lot of people jumping the gun. You can't just blame rap for all these things you're blaming rap for. You've got to understand what rap music is, where it comes from. It's crying out for help. I've been called all kinds of gangsta rappers on "FOX News" and on "Bill O'Reilly Show," and instead of them trying to understand why we write down these lyrics, they just want to kind of blame me for violence and stuff like that.
So I just kind of wanted to take it upon myself to just stand up and say all right, that's not what this is about. This is my opinion about the word nigger. And I don't understand why there's no more rap albums, a lot of people - "It's controversial, it's a controversial album." This is a rap album.
Tavis: How did you process the fact that you are not the first artist to use the word nigger in the title - Dick Gregory's autobiography was called "Nigger?"
Nas: Yeah.
Tavis: Randall Kennedy at Harvard, a law professor, can write a book called "Nigger."
Nas: Right.
Tavis: But Nas can't do a CD called "Nigger?"
Nas: Yeah, because they look down on us like we're the dirt of society, you know what I mean? That's just the way they looked at us and they continue to look at us. And when are they going to wake up and realize who we are? They're going to wake up and it's going to be too late - we're going to own all the TV networks, we're going to own all the radio stations, we're going to own it all.
And by then, it's too late - you should have been understanding where we were going with this instead of looking down at us like animals, man.
Tavis: Did I read somewhere - read or see, probably on YouTube somewhere - you went to Fox one day? You went to Fox, the headquarters in New York?
Nas: Yeah, yeah, we went to Fox, yeah.
Tavis: I read about this. You went to Fox, and you sang outside the headquarters?
Nas: I stood out there and I voiced my opinions. I stood with this organization called Color of Change, and they've organized about 600,000 people to sign a petition to get Fox from the racist garbage that they put out there. And at the same time, my record was getting back at "FOX News" for talking reckless about me about two years ago.
So I got back on a song called "Sly Fox," and when they heard it they asked me to be a part of that. So I'm like, "Hell, yeah." (Laughter) So we stood out there in front of "FOX News" and it was strong, man. It made a lot of young people aware, if they weren't aware before, how sick this network is.
Tavis: What did you make of the story when Ludacris, speaking of the hip-hop industry, puts out a record, he's doing it because he supports Obama, has some language in it about Hillary Clinton that people obviously have a problem with. But his point is to try to support Obama, to get the word out. And your generation, a whole lot of folk in hip-hop are really out front, trying to support Barack Obama.
You think there's a danger that the energy that your generation, that the hip-hop community is trying to put behind him, might end up hurting him? And what does it mean when somebody does something to try and support him and he slaps them back because he knows that he can't be seen that way if he's going to get elected president? Does that make sense?
Nas: Yeah, yeah. No, I think that man, Obama, is in a position that none of us in hip-hop will understand. He's dealing with people in high places and big missions and we in the hip-hop level, we only see it from our point of view and we voice it from our point of view and our language, which is a vulgar language, which is a blunt language, which is an aggressive language some of the times.
And it's going to come out harsh on ears of people that don't listen to rap music. To rap people, to rap fans, they're used to hearing the craziest stuff all day long, but to people in politics and people in Middle America and all of that, they start hearing that, it's scary to them. So I think Obama has to say no way. I don't expect Obama to rock with my album.
Tavis: With Nas, always so little time, so much stuff to talk about. I don't have time to go into as much as I'd like to with Nas right now, but I'm going to direct you to our website, as I do every night, to hear more of my conversation with Nas.
First of all, the new record, as if you didn't already know - the new record from Nas is called "Untitled." It's got some powerful stuff on it. Fifteen years now in the game and he's still sounding as good. But more than just sounding good, he's making us think, as he always has, from way back to the "Illmatic" days. Good to see you, man.
Nas: Thank you, man.
Tavis: That's Nas. Again, log on to our website at PBS.org to hear and to see more of my conversation with Nas about the new CD, "Untitled."
Back to August 14, 2008