During an wide-ranging interview with the Drink Champs on Revolt TV, Nas detailed how the late-great Prince once turned down his request for a collaboration.
Here’s how it went down…
“I sought him, because he came to my I Am… release party,” Nas reveals at the 48:55 mark of the interview above. “I pulled a N.O.R.E. move, I said, ‘Yo, look man, let’s do this. Let’s do this song.’ And he was like, ‘Do you own your masters?’”
The hip-hop star went on to say that Prince “blew my sh*t, because I was like, ‘I don’t, and I’m far from it, ’cause I owe this label like four, five albums. So I was like, ‘Damn.’”
While he didn’t walk away from the moment with a Prince feature, Nas says it was certainly a teachable moment.
“He dropped a jewel, he kind of helped me see the future and he was like, ‘When you own your masters, give me a ring,’” he added. “But we kicked it a few times. We got cool, he was seriously a very cool dude to me. He invited me onstage to perform. […] I think everybody wanted to work with him, so the pressure that he had from everybody… He turned Michael Jackson down! The pressure he had from people who wanted to work with him was crazy.”
Check out the full interview above, where Nas also speaks about his latest project “The Lost Tapes 2.”
In related news, the Prince Estate dropped an animated video for the music icon’s version of “Holly Rock”—the latest single off his posthumous demo album “Originals.”
The track was produced and co-written by Prince for Sheila E., who recorded it for the 1985 film “Krush Groove.” You can watch the “Holly Rock” animated video via YouTube below.
