Over the last two decades JAY-Z has coincidentally released new music on the same day as Nas. This eerie occurrences have prompted Twitter sleuths to believe Hip-Hop’s first billionaire is still not over his feud with his ‘Black Republicans’ collaborator. Though the claims may sound insubstantial, they aren’t entirely far-fetched. Jay-Z has a ‘coincidental’ trend of finding himself in the spotlight whenever a new Nas drops, with many fans alleging Hov has been trying to overshadow Nas throughout his career.
A brief Timeline Of Events
In 2001 at the height of his much-publicized beef with Jay-Z. Nas dropped his critically acclaimed fifth studio album Stillmatic, featuring classical singles One Mic and the scathing diss track Ether. In response, Jay dropped his live album Unplugged that same day.
November 30th, 2004, Nas returned with his seventh studio album “Street’s Disciple.” The double-disc effort featured production from Q-Tip, Salaam Remi and more. Hov divided attention when he decided to roll out his joint album “Collision Course” with rock band Linkin Park on the same day. The album peaked at no. 1 on the Billboard 200, while SD debuted at no. 5. Hov won.
November 6th 2007, Nas released his Greatest Hits compilation containing twelve singles from his Columbia releases, from Illmatic to Street’s Disciple and two new tracks. Surprisingly, Jay-Z dropped his tenth album “American Gangster” that same day. In a show of dominance, American Gangster debuted at no. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling over 425k copies in its first week. Hov won, again.
June 15th, 2018 Nas delivered his Kanye West produced album Nasir. It wasn’t a surprise drop as West publicly announced and documented the album’s due date. Hov nearly skipped a beat, but he quickly responded the following day with “Everything Is Love” – a collaborative album with wife Beyoncé. Nas was pissed.
Rapper 50 Cent stoked the fire and called out Jay-Z for the sneaky move.
A year later, Nas released the Lost Tapes 2 in good spirits. The project contained cuts that didn’t make some of his last four studio albums: Hip Hop Is Dead (2006), Untitled (2008), Life Is Good (2012) and the album scrapped in favor of Nasir (2018).. But Once again Hov wouldn’t let him have his day. July 19, 2019 suddenly became the perfect day for Beyoncé to roll out the soundtrack she curated for the Lion King live action remake.
Aug. 21, 2020 Jay-Z released his ‘Entrepreneur’ single with Pharrell on the same day Nas’ King’s Disease arrived. Despite fans suggesting his former rival attempted to steal his spotlight, Nas believed there was no animosity involved.
“I think maybe there’s an energy that we both have where we maybe we feel like we work around the same time and the time,” he said on The Breakfast Club in 2020. “I think things just happen — just synergy, you know? Jay would know better than me.”
Now it looks like Nas has changed his stance. On a track from his new album King’s Disease III, The Queensbridge legend addressed his old beef with JAY, and how he often texts to remind him the feud isn’t over.
“No beef or rivals, they playing ‘Ether’ on TIDAL / Brothers can do anything when they decide to / In a Range Rover, dissecting bars from ‘Takeover’ / Sometimes I text Hova like, ‘N-gga, this ain’t over,’ laughing,” he rapped on “Thun.”
When asked about the lyrics during an appearance on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Nas brought up how JAY-Z posted a photo flexing all of his Grammy Awards the same day he shared the tracklist for KD3, suggesting he finally acknowledges Jay deliberately attempts to overshadow his releases.
“When I released the tracklist for the album the other day, he released a picture with all his Grammys,” the Queensbridge MC pointed out while discussing his relationship with the Roc Nation boss. “Shout out to him.”
The track list came out on the 9th and that is indeed the same day DJ Khaled posted the picture of Jay-Z with all of his GRAMMY awards.
Jay-Z is yet to comment on it and this could all just be ‘coincidental.’
