Nas Talks Influences, Legacy & His Future (Video)

After acknowledging his influence over Kanye West, Jay Electronica, Drake and J. Cole—“[There] my babies,” he said—Nasir Jones shared this: “There’s something in the air right now that’s calling me to do something bigger than I’ve ever done before and I’m excited about it.”

“You record a lot of records, and things that don’t make the album, they get put to the side and you don’t know what to do with them,” he explained. “They sit around and they start taking on a form of their own and it belongs in an album. That’s what I’d like to do. So of course my new album is priority for the record company people and even me, but just trying to find time to put Lost Tapes and then this out—’cause everybody drops mixtapes and stuff like that and they don’t have a problem with it, but my shit comes and it’s like they’re holdin’ it with gloves…I’m like, come on, guys, I just wanna go out and play with the rest of ’em; with the niggas out their putting their shit out.” (XXL)