Nas appeared on "The Breakfast Club" to discuss his latest release, King's Disease, and the interview turned to his previous release, 2018s NASIR. That project was executive produced by Kanye West, and Nas couldn't really explain why that particular album didn't gel or resonate with audiences and critics.
"I don’t know what went wrong," Nas began. "But I would say, I did want to work more with him."
The legendary emcee explained that West's hands were full with the much-hyped G.O.O.D. Music rollout that summer, during which a West-affiliated release was dropped once a week over four weeks. Nas says he didn't get to work that much with West because he was preoccupied.
"We spent some time there, but I was working on ideas. He would give me a few loops and I would write to them but they wasn’t finished. He was working on a lot, he had Cudi, Teyana Taylor, he had his album. I was the only one coming in starting fresh. So I got the less time with him. We really did that album like, that week that it was supposed to come out."
Host DJ Envy admitted that "Cops Shot the Kid," a Slick Rick-sampling West collaboration that both Envy and Nas characterize as a great idea that wound up a missed opportunity.
"Yeah, I kinda felt that, too," he admitted. "It just went crazy once we announced we was doing the album, it went crazy after that. I definitely wanted to work with him a lot more than we did."
West announced a forthcoming Nas album back in April 2018 and the album was released that June. Much of the criticism surrounding the album was that it sounded "rushed," something that the rapper seemed to confirm during the interview. But Nas says he has no hard feelings about the album.
"I like "Cop Shot the Kid,' I like 'Adam and Eve,'" he explains. "I like the music in 'Simple Things.' It’s a short album. We just didn’t get enough time. I wish we’d worked on it more. Certain things happened for reasons."
*CREDIT: Nas and Kanye West during Kanye West performance at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City, New York. (Photo by Theo Wargo/WireImage)