
Great feature from Rolling Stone:
Today, the pride of Queens, Nas, drops a Greatest Hits album that spans from 1994’s Illmatic — probably the best debut in hip-hop history — to 2004’s Street Disciple. No tracks from his most recent album, Hip Hop Is Dead, were included (his last label, Columbia, put out the Hits package), but Nasir says not to worry. “I think it’s better to start off slow,” he explains in an exclusive RS track-by-track analysis. “I’m thinking about doing it again and taking it to another level with a box set. I don’t think there’s a box set in hip-hop. Maybe mine will be the first.” Also missing is “Ether,” the MC’s brutal takedown of Jay-Z. ” ‘Ether’ is a battle record that was not really appropriate right now,” he explains. “That’s not where my head is. I was in a different place. The Greatest Hits was about a career, and that’s just one piece, so I didn’t want to mess it up with that song.”
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