Throughout his career, Nas has projected himself as an intellectual rapper and many people have looked up to him. His early rhymes were hailed by critics and they grew upset with him. Starting with his second album, Nas started to change his style. Mafioso rap was popular and Nas transformed himself into Escobar.
During his feud with Jay-Z, Hov revealed this to the world and all of the quiet rumblings soon became loud rants about Nas. In an effort to combat all of the negative attention, Nas soon returned to his intellectual rapping. But, it was a case of too little too late, even after his victory in the feud with Jay-Z.
The feud with Jay-Z was won with his epic diss, “Ether.” But, in the song, a lot of the information was fabricated. Even on his song, “I Can,” a lot of the facts were a bit tangled. Years after his feud with Jay-Z and the mix-up in his songs, Nas has decided to speak on the criticisms. He said many of his rhymes are complicated like this.
Nas says when he writes songs, he does not check the facts. He simply rolls with the rhymes and if there is a mistake, the mistake stays. Much like many other rappers, Nas said he has sacrificed words all in an effort to keep the rhyme going. He said he has slurred words on almost all of his albums in order for the song to keep a consistent rhyme. In his “I Can” song, he mistakenly credited Alexander the Great for Napoleon. Nas said there was nothing wrong with that because Alexander the Great and Napoleon go hand in hand.
