I love PBS! I grew up on it. If I had to say which channels were good, I'd say, you got your PBS, your History Channel, your Discovery.
— Nas
I wish the music business was a much easier thing, but you know what? Nothing easy is worth anything. So it is what it is. There comes a time when things can work out and everybody can be happy. And that's what it's all about in the end - everybody being happy and working it out.
I'll always love rap, no matter what's going on.
Hip-hop is really standoffish. It's really competitive and it's really about who's number one all the time. Sometimes it gets out of hand.
I want to have fun. It's a beautiful life. You learn, you win, you lose, but you get up.
I had a pretty public divorce. They're not easy - divorces - and it took me a long time to really get through.
I have no tattoos that I regret - I have had some that I have had changed according to how my life was.
Working with great people makes you great; you learn a lot and it also gives you the experience and confidence to move on with your own career.
Anybody I'm dating, I don't want them to talk about my music. I don't talk about my music to them.
The sound of the '90s, to me, is a combination of soul and street - it's a feeling.
Let's not forget, art can sell. You ain't gotta front all the time on your records.
Hip-hop is making a lot of noise. It should get some more spotlight.
I want to sound like an instrument. I want my voice and my words to marry the beat. I go with the rhythm of it and the words start to come to my mind and those words could be based on things that's been on my mind for the past year, the past month, the past week, whatever; I write it.
I think the fact that I made enough noise in the world that I might be remembered is an amazing achievement. You can't ask for more than that.
Hip-hop is the streets. Hip-hop is a couple of elements that it comes from back in the days... that feel of music with urgency that speaks to you. It speaks to your livelihood and it's not compromised. It's blunt. It's raw, straight off the street - from the beat to the voice to the words.
'Stillmatic' is the rebirth of 'Illmatic,' my first debut album to come out in 1994. 'Stillmatic' is me coming full circle in my career and with everything, and just bringing pure hip-hop back.
Man, me and Biggie were the biggest artists in New York. When he passed, I was so messed up. My attitude was messed up about him dying. There was an East-West thing back then, and I was in war mode.
I think if I heard someone else talking about their life, describing all the problems I've had, they'd look like they were through. Done. But there's something about me - I'm smiling. Those things are really not bad enough to put me in a slump. I'm smiling with the opportunity to wake up every morning.
I can't control what people think. They know who I am.
I just enjoy life now. I just enjoy every morning I get to wake up.
When you're a teenager, you want to meet a lot of girls - you want to get the most girls. You don't know anything about respect; you don't know anything about being faithful and loyal to your girlfriend.
I don't get jealousy, I don't get how people hate each other - I never did.
Anybody can be a rapper, but not anybody can be a classical artist.
