Queens rap legend Nas dropped his critically acclaimed album Kings Disease II with close collaborator and executive producer Hit-Boy.
One of the highlights on the album came in the track “Death Row East”. Nas gives his side of the story on the infamous West Coast Vs. East Coast beef. On the track, Nas recalls an altercation between himself snd Tupacs entourage outside of Radio City Music Hall at the 1996 VMAs.
Unfortunately, Nas and Tupac never got the chance to settle their differences before Pac’s untimely death.
In an interview with Ebro Darden on Apple Music’s “Rap Life Radio,” Nas hinted at a possible mini-doc further explaining the feud between Nas, Tupac, and Death Row East.
“Death Row was the biggest rap company in the world,” Nas recalled. “They were bigger than everybody; they had a lot going. There was a lot of tension. There was a lot of beef that came with it. Dudes was just in their twenties, not far removed from the street, running these empires. In New York, when they came here, we was just like, ‘wow, it was our time’… it was myself, Pac, Biggie, I’m missing somebody else. I had to do my part just by being there in New York. Things jumped off at the Radio City MTV Music Awards between my brother Jungle and Pac and Moose. And it started from there.”
“You see how this is a story even to this day. I think we are gonna shoot a small documentary on this thing. It’s so much into this song -- there needs to be like a little short film,” Nas suggests.
Getting Nas’s side of the story on “Death Row East” gave ‘90s hip-hop fans some insight into how hectic that time was in hindsight. A documentary about this time in hip-hop history, told by one of the era’s most significant acts, will be monumental for the culture