Nas-Explanation to his albums

[A pimp named Sarkozy]

We all know the "boy" to "man" to "king" to "prophet" progression that mirrors Illmatic to It Was Written to I Am to Nastradamus... we all know the "Since Illmatic, it was written I am Nastradamus" title riddle... the first four covers were basic... Nas is growing, as a man and as an artist... he started as a young dude on the corners of QB observing, dreaming and writing poetry. Then he became the man, living a Scarface/Pablo Escobar type life of excess... then the king, the seasoned lyricist, the post-BIG king of NYC... and finally we had the prophet as a harbinger of what would be to come...

"what was once ghetto prophecy is now ghetto scripture" - Nas

The cover of Nastradamus sets up the cover of Stillmatic in an interesting way. It's Nas' fourth album and he's still prophesizing... he's not saying, this is the end result, this the top... he's saying there's more to come... the turbulent future lies ahead... Stillmatic would be an album immersed in conflict, political on the level of its post 9/11 commentary, political in the world of hip-hop with the Jay-Z, Cormega, Nature, Prodigy beef, and personal with the split from Carmen... (during the time of Nastradamus, Nas knew the feud with Jay-Z would one day become public. He also saw where QB was heading and knew he’d have to destroy and rebuild. And Carmen leaving, well that was a forgone conclusion)… so the last line of Nastradamus... "despite the damage to destiny you can't take the best of me - In God we still trust" sets off the "damage to destiny" that occurs in Stillmatic... and "In God we still trust" sets up the heavy religious references Nas finds solace in on "God's Son"...

"on my next few albums - there'll be a difficult test inside the cover for the mind's optics" - Nas (Stillmatic Freestyle, 2001)

The cover of Stillmatic represents the downfall of man... the downfall that had occured in Nas' career and his personal life and the downfall of man in the greater world... 9/11, hyper urbanization, crime, racism, poverty, drugs, death and the rap game Nas plans to destroy and rebuild...

Nas said in an interview that he wore every piece of ice he owned for the cover... we can see his QB piece, a host of platinum necklaces, some diamond rings and an iced out watch... this represents the folly of Nas (his Escobar flossing days), the excesses of the rap game (late 90s to early 2000s was the height of the bling bling era) and more metaphorically the excesses of a capitalistic American society (think the late nineties' bulging and inflated stock market)... also the garish orange jump suit Nas wears is intentionally loud... it's not that he has poor style, it’s garishness is conscious in the spirit of irony...

The dark, lightning scorched skies above the NYC skyline behind Nas represent the apocalyptic world prophesized on Nastradamus... the omission of the twin towers in the skyline is a subtle reference to 9/11... the water is very important, I’ll get to that in a minute...

Many people ask about Nas' fingers and whether they’re significance... they are... On the left, Nas has four fingers extended... these fingers represent his first four albums... notice the ring on the first finger (the pinkie) representing Illmatic, his finest achievement... (to which Stillmatic pays homage)... depicting the first four albums is significant because it reminds us what has come before... an homage to the past (as much of Stillmatic is)...

The other hand represents the future... Stillmatic is the index, the middle is Lost Tapes (it's shortened length representing the album’s brevity and lesser importance as a compilation of unreleased songs), the ring finger is God's Son...and finally we have the pinky as Streets Disciple... now a lot of you will say I'm reaching (if you already haven't) but hear me out... Nas clearly planned out his first four albums ("from 92 to 99" - Nas, Represent 1994... "Since Illmatic it was written I am Nastradamus" - Nas, Freestyle 2001) so it's safe to say he planned out the next four and exemplified them on the cover... now I'm not saying anything foolish like Nas is actually a prophet or can see the future... but according to interviews around 2001/02 and later songs Nas said he knew he'd get married in the next year or so... ("to who I knew not - thought of snatching Hallie up from the dreadlock" -Nas, Getting Married 2004)... so the ring on the ring finger represents his desire to get married (and move on from Carmen)... ironically that desire would be fulfilled during the "God's Son" era that the ring finger represents ("gave the keys to Kelis, because she the wife and they the freaks" - Nas, Mastermind 2002)

Finally we have the pigeon, the ghetto dove... this is where it gets Biblical (and sets up a parable connecting through to the “Streets Disciple” cover)... what the entire album cover is, taken as a whole, is an allusion to the Old Testament story of Noah... y'all know it... in ancient times mankind became very wicked… murder and rape abounded… immorality was everywhere… so God punished the wicked world with a flood... (the link to Judeo-Christian religion is established with the silver cross that hangs conspicuously below the rest of Nas' jewelery...) The Stillmatic cover is the moment before the flood... Nas is at once Noah and God, poised for what's ahead and ready to bring it... the album Stillmatic is Nas' arc... as Noah brought two of every animal to repopulate the world, Nas brings his favorite rappers (AZ, Bravehearts, Nashawn and Blitz) to repopulate the rap world after it’s destroyed...

Let's get back to the pigeon... in the Bible, Noah sent out a dove everyday during the flood... the dove would constantly return with an empty beak, representing that there was no land and that God's punishment was still in effect... the pigeon, is Nas' dove ready to be sent out pending the coming storm.... (notice those rain clouds overhead are holding a lot of water, the lightning is holding promise of a storm)...

Moving on… next we have the tranquil cover of "God Son", in contrast to the busy tumultuous Stillmatic cover... Nas is surrounded by water... the sky and water are dark blue hinting at a departing storm... the world has been flooded... the storm hit during Stillmatic...the water that loomed in the background of the Stillmatic cover has risen up and engulfed the buildings, the wall and Nas himself... Destroy and Rebuild was a typhoon, What Goes Around was a hurricane, Ether was a tsunami...the wrath of God, Noah's flood, the wrath of God's Son...

Nas stands, arms folded, head down... humble... in reverence... in mourning for the loss the storm has brought, and for the loss of his mother... he is also in prayer to God... as Stillmatic was the arc, God's Son is Nas' meditation on himself and his communication with God...

He is unclothed... the storm has swept away almost all of his jewelry, save for a Jesus piece (hidden by his arms) and a golden bracelet. The gold is less expensive than the platinum of Stillmatic but more noble... a throwback to an older generation, to the Old School of hip-hop (which much of the album is based in ie Apache sample in Made You Look "we bringin '88 back")... it is also a throw back to Biblical times when gold symbolized nobility...

On a deeper level, Nas is bare because he is now naked of sin...on the surface no more orange jump suit, no more platinum... musically his style of rap is no longer based in materialistic flossing or violence ("I live a clean life - I don't even steal cable"), he has transcended the mundane and risen to another level... he is no longer the kingpin, the king, the prophet or the hell raiser... he is a spiritual disciple of the streets... a survivor of his own storm...

On the back cover we see Nas' arms outstretched, and he's holding two doves... their beaks are empty, the pigeon still hasn’t found land... in the story of Noah the dove brought back an olive branch as a sign of vegetation (and thus land)... in the saga of Nasir the pigeon has become a dove and returned empty beaked but with another dove... in a sense Nas and the pigeon are one...

Nas' style has transcended from the gritty street aesthetic of Stillmatic to the spiritual purity of God's Son... he has transformed from pigeon to dove... the second dove can be seen as representing balance... with his arms outstretched, the second dove balances the first... in the aftermath of the Stillmatic's storm equilibrium has been reached, everything is balanced... the second dove also represents Kelis, Nas' new companion for bringing balance…

SEE http://forums.sohh.com/showthread.ph...post1054393747 FOR STREET'S DISCIPLE

[blak boy]

Eh, is the word. hm. Don't know what to make of this, Thinking bout nas, even i can't believe this ish, but hey

[TATEguru v.2K9]

Even for me an admitted Nas fan most of this is a reach.

Art is subject to interpratation & this particular interpretation is majorly presumptuous..
The author could have pa**ed A-Level english literature though.

[A pimp named Sarkozy]

It may seem like inane bickering to those outside hip-hop culture but battling — whether in a freestyle cipher or on wax — is an intrinsic part of the culture, directly linked to the African-American oral practice of "the dozens" where respect for verbal dexterity was paramount. As one of hip-hop’s most gifted and influential MCs, Nas’s word weaving is highly revered. He may be known for his own fierce verbal battle with Jay-Z, but it would be grossly inaccurate to dismiss him as just a battle MC. His reputation was built on his knack for writing vivid and poetically intricate verses, which positioned him as a modern day griot, filing reportage from the vantage of his project window in the infamous Queensbridge housing projects. Yet this blessing has also been his curse. After dropping the cla**ic Illmatic, Nas has struggled to live up to his own standard, wrestling with its influence and his own image, leading to ill-fated career choices, maddening inconsistency and drastically swinging fortunes. Though he’s butted heads with other artists and the expectations of diehard fans, it seems Nas’s battle is ultimately with himself.

1973 - 1981
Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones was born on September 14, 1973 in Long Island, New York to Fannie Ann Jones and to jazz trumpeter Olu Dara. In Arabic, Nasir means ‘helper’ or ‘protector’, Bin means "son of’. At first Nas lived in Crown Heights, Brooklyn with his mother who worked at United Postal Service and his jazz trumpeter father. At age 4 he would play trumpet on the stoop of the house to the admiration of pa**ers-by. His father told him to stop playing until he was older, because his lip was hanging down, much to Nas’ chagrin. However his father often took him to the recording studio and backstage at shows and he would often invite the young boy on stage while he played. The family moved to six-block radius of Queensbridge Houses, the largest public housing ma** in North America. No longer interested in playing the trumpet, the introverted Nas wrote short stories, drew cartoons creating his own character Sea God.

1982 – 1988
While many of his friends’ mothers in the Queensbridge Houses were crackheads, Nas’ mother looked after him and his brother Jabari well. Met William "Ill Will" Graham who lived in the apartment above. He introduced Nas to Chinese food by dropping the food down to Nas’ plate held outside the window. Now interested in hip-hop, Nas would go upstairs to Ill Will’s place and listen to music. Ill Will had turntables and a fader and he would play the DJ while Nas first began to rhyme over popular tracks making tapes. He also began to tape off the radio studying the hip-hop records he heard and would wake up his brother Jabari practicing rhymes that he had made up. While his parents divorced when he was twelve, Nas continued to write short stories and immersed himself deeper into hip-hop culture. Hanging out with Ill Will he got into graffiti using the tag name Kid Wave, a name he also used when he was a part of a b-boy crew called Breakin’ In Action (B.I.A.). At the park, Nas witnessed the legendary Queensbridge hip-hop producer Marley Marl hosting jams with Biz Markie and Roxanne Shante. For a time he wanted to be a producer like Marley Marl and tried Djing and scratching, but wasn’t very proficient at it. He also idolized Queensbridge’s MC Shan and often asked the MC about the recording process. Fannie Ann Jones and Olu Dara however, divorced when Nas was twelve years old. Soon he became part of a rhyming crew called the Devastatin’ Seven and at the same time was reading books on African history, mysticism, witchcraft and was introduced to Five Percenter teachings by older youths. Wanting to be creative, Nas dropped out of high school early in 9th grade, angry at teachers feeling they were suppressing what he wanted to do. He began to smoke weed heavily and with Ill Will and friends he began to become wild, hitting and robbing people running around on trains and hustled briefly on the street corner. Nas absorbed what he was seeing and experiencing intently as he still harboured the desire to rhyme.

1989 to 1990
Having determined he wanted to put together a demo, Nas was introduced by a mutual friend Melquan to a 17-year old producer wunderkind named Large Professor outside a high school. The Flushing, Queens teenage producer was doing uncredited production work on Eric B. & Rakim’s "Let The Rhythm Hit ‘Em" album after cla**es. The two hit it off and Large Professor invites Nas to recording sessions for the Eric B & Rakim and Kool G. Rap albums he is working on, giving Nas the chance to witness arguably two of hip-hop’s finest MCs in action. When Rakim didn’t show up for sessions, Nas steps into the booth and record under Large Professor’s tutelage to work on his demo. Fellow MC Akinyele calls Nas up occasionally to take these recordings to labels to arouse their interest, sometimes with the accompaniment of Kool G. Rap. While these efforts prove unsuccessful, Large Professor gets a deal with Wild Pitch along with two Toronto DJs K-Cut & Sir Scratch who were also brothers,. The group is named Main Source and Large Professor looking out for his protégé invites Nas to appear on the album.

1991
Main Source’s album Breaking Atoms is released and is hailed as a hip-hop cla**ic.
Nasty Nas, as he was then called, appears as the first MC on the track "Live at the Barbeque" which also features Large Professor & Akinyele. However Nas’ incredibly striking verse grabs all the attention and is the most talked about aspect of the song among hip-hop fans. On the strength of the success of the single "Looking At the Front Door", Main Source go on tour with the UMCs and Jaz and Nas accompanies the group.
At one tour stop in Washington, DC technical difficulties force the show to be cut short prompting an unruly response from the crowd who chase the groups onto their tour bus. Jaz’s hypeman, a then-unknown Jay-Z, pulls a gun out of his gym bag in case things got further out of hand, to the shock of Nas and everyone else present. Jay-Z would later recount this incident in the lyrics of "Takeover" to belittle Nas.

1992
While he continued to shop his demo in New York, Nas had been rejected by prominent rap labels of the time such as Cold Chillin’ and Def Jam and is on the verge of giving up altogether. Meanwhile one of Def Jam’s acts 3rd Ba** had broken up and MC Serch from the group was now working on a solo project. At the suggestion of producer T-Ray, MC Serch asks Nas to appear on the posse cut. At the recording session Serch finds out much to his surprise that Nas still does not have a recording contract. He contacts Faith Newman an A&R at Sony who had actually been attempting to find Nas for a while and he is immediately offered a contract. At a party in Queensbridge, a slightly drunk Ill Will gets into an altercation with a girl he apparently disrespects. She calls up some male friends who arrive on the scene and shoot Ill Will in the back and Nas’ brother Jabiri in the leg. Ill Will dies in hospital. Nasty Nas sends a ‘rest in peace’ shoutout to Ill Will on "Halftime", the first single he records which is featured on the soundtrack to the film Zebrahead that features the on-screen debut of Michael Rappaport. The single adds to the buzz surrounding Nas and when MC Serch’s solo album is released later in the year, Nas’ standout appearance on "Back To The Grill" only intensifies interest.

1993
While Nas wants the Large Professor to executive produce his album, Large Professor isn’t interested and is content with being a producer on the album. MC Serch took on the role of executive producer instead while Large Professor helped to connect Nas with various producers to work with. Based on what they had already heard, New York’s premier beatsmiths were very eager to work with Nas who would peruse through 65-70 beats for settling on his final ten selections. Serch contacted Gang Starr’s DJ Premier, while Large Professor got Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest and Pete Rock involved. A producer named L.E.S. also gets to work on the album when Nas comes over to his house for a casual visit. An MC named AZ is also there and the trio end up creating a song named "Life’s A *****". This song ultimately also features a trumpet solo from Nas’ father Olu Dara. This collection of producers on one project is unprecedented at this time in hip-hop. Before this time most albums were primarily the work of one dedicated production team. The anticipation surrounding Nas’ record begins to reach fever pitch heightened by the fact that bootleg copies of his album begin to surface on the street. Puff Daddy who was in the midst of launching his label Bad Boy had taken to showing up at the record company offices claiming he managed Nas and inquiring about his record contract details irking MC Serch who had brokered the deal. Serch makes a deal with Nas that entitles him to royalties on Nas’ second album and severs his business ties with the emcee and takes a job at Wild Pitch Records.

1994
In March, Nas’ debut Illmatic is released to universal acclaim. The recording receives 5 mics in The Source magazine, a prestigious achievement given the magazine’s unquestionable clout and very heavy influence at the time. The album cover features a picture of Nas as a child, taken just after his father had returned home from playing concerts overseas. The original album cover concept was to feature Nas holding Christ in a headlock. Nas’ aspirations for the album were to move out of the projects which he did ahead of the album’s release and attempt to go to film school. However, the hype surrounding the album and the response to it caught him off guard. His shy personality and shock at the intensity the record resonated with others meant he withdrew from actively promoting the record. Ultimately, the sales of the record paled into comparison with other releases of the year such as Snoop Doggy Dogg’s "Doggystyle". Nas began to live beyond his means spending his money on clothes, weed and jewelry and when he performed members of his crew got into fights. Meanwhile Nas’ daughter Destiny is born. "One On One" a collaboration with Large Professor appears on the Street Fighter soundtrack and is the last production the duo will work on for some time.

1995
The influence of Illmatic is being heavily felt and Nas’ rhyme style inspires a slew of imitators. It also inspires a revival in Queensbridge hip-hop with the emergence of Mobb Deep as vital players on the scene with the release of The Infamous, an album on which Nas appears. Nas also shows up on AZ’s album Doe or Die, after the Brooklyn MC snagged a record deal from his Illmatic appearance. Nas also makes guest appearances on Kool G Rap’s "4,5,6" and is the first non Wu-Tang member to appear on one of their recordings when he appears on Raekwon’s "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx" contributing another memorable verse. Nas begins to dub himself as Nas Escobar on these appearances. Meanwhile Nas’ lack of focus on his spending habits leaves him with little money and he has to ask for money to buy something to wear to the Source Awards being held that year. The awards show is dominated by Puff Daddy’s act Notorious B.I.G who wins four awards, sending a clear message to Nas that he needed to change his approach. Soon he hires Steve Stoute as a manager.

1996While Illmatic attains gold status, Steve Stoute convinces Nas to aim his efforts in a more commercial direction. He enlists production team the Trackmasterz known for their mainstream success to a**ist him. The only producer to return from Illmatic was DJ Premier who contributes the awe-inspiring "I Gave You Power". The single "If I Ruled The World" with Lauryn Hill from the Fugees, signified the new accessible Nas. Nas’ talents are still evident when It Was Written is released, but the increase in subject matter on materialistic excess leaves fans of his early work dismayed. This direction is underscored in the glossy, expensive videos that parody gangster movies like Casino, accompanying the project. Nevertheless, the record proves to be a commercial success, selling over 3 million copies. The record also featured the debut of Nas’ new group The Firm. The group consists of Nas, AZ, female MC Foxy Brown who is heavily influenced by Nas and Cormega a revered MC and former drug kingpin from Queens who had recently finished a prison term and was referenced on Illmatic’s "One Love". Nas also teams up with Dr. Dre on "Nas Is Coming", a significant collaboration given the simmering tensions between East Coast and West Coast rap acts at this time, but this doesn’t leave him immune from the situation. Tupac disses Nas on a song called "Against All Odds" on his Makaveli album feeling Nas had dissed him on It Was Written’s "The Message". The two eventually meet to squash their differences and agree to have the dis removed. Two days after the meeting, Tupac Shakur is shot and killed and the dis remained on the song.
1997
Nas focuses his attention on working on the Firm album. Nas’ manager ‘Commissioner’ Steve Stoute wanted Cormega to sign a production deal that apparently dictated he had to put money into the group something Cormega refused to do. Cormega had also grown impatient with Nas’ desire to ensure his financial success ahead of the group and didn’t care much for the Mafioso image the group was cultivating. Cormega was eventually ousted from The Firm and was replaced by Nature, a little known MC who apparently had attended junior high school with Nas. Despite the fact the Firm album featured some notable production work from Dr. Dre, The Firm album arrives overdue and overhyped by the time it was eventually released and proved to be a very disappointing on all levels. Meanwhile Cormega releases a white label entitled "**** Nas & Nature". Nature retaliates by writing a verse dissing Cormega on a DJ Clue mixtape. The two eventually swap blows in Queensbridge and then squash their beef. Meanwhile Nas does ghostwriting on Will Smith’s Big Willie Style album and appears on R&B singles by Mary J. Blige & Allure, moves which do nothing to dissuade the growing opinion he is rapidly falling off.

[illmas]

^^^^^
Nothing i did not know about NAS! anything more??

[blak boy]

Illmas? Of course you want more!!! yeah pretty interesting, didn't know about some of the stuff, links anyone

[A pimp named Sarkozy]

[b]What percentage of MCs in hip-hop do you think are actually intelligent?
You have different kinds of people. You have people that are extremely book smart that lack common sense so they don’t know what’s going to affect their audience. They have more information than me based on reading. For instance, Nas is a really smart guy. He reads books constantly. We were around him on the Nastradamus tour. He was almost weirder than me ’cause we would go to breakfast and he’d be there reading a book. Conceptually, I think that’s what made him drift away from what his initial audience enjoys from him and why he’s not hot right now.

Because he reads too much?
Yes. He’s feeding you too much information in the music and they don’t actually want it. He’s like a teacher. I was in love with KRS-One when he came with “Criminal Minded” and “The Bridge Is Over.” That was theme music to what was going on at that time. And when he started teaching, he lost them. ’Cause it was like, “What is he talkin’ about?”

But you’re obviously really intelligent.
Absolutely. Smart enough not to overwhelm people with information.[/b]But they’re still getting information from you.
Right, but in different ways and in pieces. Anything [that] changes too fast is no good—[the audience] isn’t sure what’s going on. It’s like you watching an actor portray a character in a film that you really enjoy. Then afterwards, he sits on the couch on a talk show and this guy is so artistic that you’re not sure if you [really] f***in’ like him.

Why, ’cause they’re acting?
Yeah. They’re doing something that’s totally… That may not even be a small portion of their actual character. And then when you see them after the fact, they give you something that’s so artsy.

But the same can be said about you. Do I think if 50 Cent was in a situation where he had to protect himself or he had to hurt somebody, would he blast someone? I might think that. But also…
Under them circumstances…

I would think 50 is too smart to do something like that.
Now listen, I’ll explain this to you. Under certain circumstances when my back is against the wall, yes. But then you have a choice. To my knowledge, when your back is against the wall, either you can be victimized or you find a way out of that situation the best way you know how. I don’t say, “When I see you I’ma pop you” or “I’m gonna make it hot this summer.” I don’t say those types of things. That’s what [people] say to me. So now my antennas go up when they come around because you said that. I don’t believe you like that [but] I’ma give you the benefit of the doubt. When you do something that ain’t right, if you get hurt, you get hurt.

Cam’ron said he’s gonna make it hot this summer, right?
Yeah. I don’t know who he’s talkin’ to, like on what level? And I’m not responsible for the actions of others after you say that ’cause he doesn’t even know what heat is. ’Cause his track record and the lil’ thing that happened in D.C., that’s not heat. That’s a random incident. Heat is when you can’t come outside ’cause it’s gonna go down.

So even in this corporate environment that you’re dealing with, you’re saying you have to consider something like what Cam’ron says seriously?
You have to consider everything Cam says seriously on some level. You can brush it off, [but] then you’re not on point. You’re not paying attention. Ask me why I don’t drink. Is it because I don’t enjoy drinking? Or is it because I know drinking affects my judgment and I’ll start seeing things differently? I’ll start seeing a guy that’s staring at me because he’s intrigued by the success I’m having and he sees himself similar to me ’cause he grew up under the same circumstances [or he’s] looking at me like he might want a problem. You feel what I’m saying? There is no significance of success. The significance is coming from where I came from. I’m from the bottom.

When Cam called Hot 97 to talk to you about your Koch Records comments, you were being articulate, smart and you backed your argument up. But then he engaged you in a way that was a bit more belligerent.
My initial intention when we started that conversation wasn’t to cause an altercation. But after an altercation is caused, I have no intentions of resolving it. I don’t believe you can resolve a situation with someone you didn’t initiate. If they caused it, there’s nothing you can do on your end. You didn’t actually ask for it so it’s there. And you make it—you pound away at him with the consistency of releasing quality material ’til his a** is dust. He’s gone and everybody that surrounds him gets it in the end, too. This is why I tell him Jim Jones should be the boss of Dipset and now you see Jim Jones say he’s not f***in’ with Cam.

Yeah, but you knew they weren’t really getting along.
I already knew the circumstances behind that ’cause I do my research. At the end of the day, [Jim Jones] is a more credible artist than Cam’ron is. You’re as hot as your last hit record. His last hit was f***in’ “Horse & Carriage.” He’ll make comparisons to Lloyd Banks’ sales with Jimmy Jones’ sales. So what? Is my worst your best? Why are you not comparing yourself to me? Considering he’s supposed to be Dipset’s boss, while I’m supposed to be the headman for G-Unit. Maybe it’s because he sold 200,000 his last album and I sold 9.8 million.

Are you cool with Jim Jones?
I don’t have a problem with him. I think they got an idiot in the lead position. You gotta make the changes he’s making right now. I think they got some talent over there. Why would I want to destroy [Dipset] considering we have nothing going on from New York City? If it was up to me, Dipset would be hot. You just got an idiot in your frontline. You call him your leader? He just got punched in his eye. To be honest, that’s their responsibility to fix that—all of them.

Did you see Cam’s YouTube video while he was on vacation?
Yeah, he’s a fool. Why would you shoot a video from poolside [in] your little polka dot underwear? Doesn’t make sense.

What about him showing his eye to the camera?
I think he’s a fool for even showing me his eye. What are you proving? You’re showing me your eye two weeks after [you allegedly got punched]? We haven’t seen you for two weeks. You had ice on it for two weeks. [Laughs] Yo! He’s incredible, man!

Is Cam’s career over?
He’s been over. Cam had Columbia [Records] spend marketing dollars on him when he was with Untertainment. He had Def Jam spend marketing dollars when he was on Roc-A-Fella. Now he’s in a graveyard. The majors have no interest in spending money on him because they know the marketing dollars that’s spent is going to be in vain. [But] Jimmy’s done something that’s significant—he came out of the graveyard. His career started on Koch, which means he can go do his deal with the majors [and] he can go do a publishing deal. The kinda money he gon’ receive in those positions based on the success of his last project is gonna make, when he says, “ballin’,” real.

Talk about your next album after Curtis.
Before I Self Destruct. It’ll be out February 4 [and] I’m about three songs away from completing it. I’ll be done with that record and that really is my last studio requirement under my Shady/Aftermath/Interscope deal. ’Cause after that is a greatest hits record.

Will you stop rapping after that?
If I make music, it’ll be organically. It’ll be zero pressure towards releasing it in a time span. I’ll make sure everything that’s on there… I feel like this record is incredible but I’ll take [my] time. It’ll probably be like 60 or 70 records before I decide to pick 10 and then just put those 10 records out.

With so much revenue coming in from other ventures, does rapping even make sense at this point?
Well, it makes great… the energy changes when you got good music out. That’s all it’s really for. I’m in a great financial space in [my] life. I’m proud of my decisions. While people were trying to make their own alcoholic beverage and do different things, I went towards Vitamin Water. I’m health conscious. I work out. I’m actually physically training now for a boxing film, so they’ll see the difference in my physical because I’m working harder. They asked a question on 106 & Park if I took any…

Steroids or something like that?
I guess that’s a question they see when you make a physical change on any level.

Who are you training with?
With a personal trainer. He just brought me a diet supplementary card and I have a regiment. They probably can’t afford to do what I’m doing right now.

Who are they?
Other artists. I couldn’t afford to do it prior to the success, like nobody in my camp is doing what I’m doing. Nobody else in my camp has a nutritionist and a trainer and has them follow you around. You pick up a cookie, “Okay, put it down.” You see what I’m saying? Like everything possible he’s watching you like you’re doing something wrong when you’re ready to go the refrigerator.

Weren’t you trying to hook M.O.P. with something like that?
Yeah, I had M.O.P. live at my house for six months.

Is it true you were offering them a G for every pound they lost?
Yeah, M.O.P., they just ain’t after the same thing. They are a great group. They got music I’d love to put out. I’m just not going to bet on a horse that got three legs in this climate. It won’t win a race.

Did your beef with Game cause any weirdness between you and Dr. Dre?
It always did, just in my head. I’m not even sure he knows. He might read this and be surprised that I said it. But Dre didn’t voice his opinion knowing I gave Game everything that made him what he is. And that didn’t matter. It shouldn’t matter that [Dre] gave me “In Da Club.” He brought something creatively to the table that helped spawn my entire career and I respect him for it. On a higher level, Em for me is like next to my grandmother. He did things for me when I couldn’t do them myself. I needed him at that point and he actually came through for me.

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