Photo Courtesy of GQ
Last year, rap legend Nas raised $1.2 million to relaunch the street art and culture publication Mass Appeal magazine. A few months later he announced his intent to start an independent album named after the very same publication. The first release off of the new label was to be a (hopefully annual) compilation of up and coming artists as well as old friends of Nas.
“I’m excited to be a part of creating and supporting future careers and legacy artists, promoting love and finding new genius to help the world,” Nas commented in an email to Billboard Magazine. “I’m going to be as involved as I need to be, but I also want to be respectful of the art and give artists the space they need to grow and become themselves.”
Now his compilation has its first popular single entitled “Old English” thank to A$AP Ferg, Freddie Gibbs, and Young Thug. The entire album is due out September 2nd (the same expected date for Young Jeezy’s Seen It All). The compilation will also feature tracks by Pusha T, Juicy J, Pimp C, YG, Mac Miller, Boldy James, Fashawn, Bishop Nehru, and more.
Old English was produced by Salva and Nick Hook who also are set to produce other tracks to the album. Their influence has been credited for unifying the very different styles of A$AP, Gibbs, and Young Thug. They also make sure that each artist gets their time to shine without stepping on each other’s toes. If this song is a hint at what’s to come then the rest of the compilation should be pretty impressive.
The news of this album coincides with Nas’s 20th anniversary of the classic Illmatic album as well has his publicized appearance with David Chapelle at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. This will be a very big year for the rapper who will both celebrate his achievements while ushering forth the next wave of great rappers
Listen to the first track yourself and keep as FDRMX keeps an eye out for new releases as we approach the September 2nd for Mass Appeal Volume I.