Nas sat down for an extensive interview with the Drink Champs on Revolt TV, detailing what it was like to work with all the artists he's collaborated with and the possibility of Lost Tapes 3 and 4. During the chat, the subject of hitting up people for collabs only for them to say no came up, and Nas revealed that Prince was one of the few musicians who turned him down.
"I sought him, because he came to my I Am... release party," Nas revealed at the 48:55 point of the interview. "I pulled a N.O.R.E. move, I said, 'Yo, look man, let's do this. Let's do this song.' And he was like, 'Do you own your masters?'" When he told that part of the story, he was met with jeers. "But he blew my shit, because I was like, 'I don't,'" he continued with a smile. "And I'm far from it, 'cause I owe this label like four, five albums. So I was like, 'Damn.'"
While he didn't walk away from the experience with a Prince feature, he did appreciate the interaction. "He dropped a jewel, he kind of helped me see the future and he was like, 'When you own your masters, give me a ring,'" he added. "But we kicked it a few times. We got cool, he was seriously a very cool dude to me. He invited me onstage to perform. [...] I think everybody wanted to work with him, so the pressure that he had from everybody... He turned Michael Jackson down! The pressure he had from people who wanted to work with him was crazy."
Check out the full interview above, where Nas shares the story of creating Illmatic, meeting N.O.R.E. for the first time, recording "QueensBridge Politics" off his latest project The Lost Tapes 2, and more.
