While we now know that hip-hop royalty can coexist in one city, Nas and Jay-Z haven’t always been on the best terms.
Geto Boys legend Scarface opened up to N.O.R.E. and DJ EFN on Drink Champs about the history of Nas and Hov’s relationship this week, revealing that Scarface’s 2002 track “In Between Us,” which was featured on his album The Fix, had to go through some changes.
As the MC shares, Nasty Nas may have gotten a little too nasty on an early version of the cut, dissing Jay several times throughout his verse, at times in a graphic nature.
“And Nas, the first verse he took, was some of the stuff he laid down on ‘Ether’, some of those lyrics,” Scarface said. “‘I hope your wife cook your food with her period blood’ or something, you know.”
Scarface also shared that he had to help Nas backpedal on the verse a bit to get it where it ended up.
“He said that on ‘In Between Us’ and I was like, ‘Nah, Nas. We can’t go at cuz like that, you know. Not on here,’” Scarface explained. “Nas went at Jay on that record. I can’t remember everything that was said, but he fucking went off. And I was like we not going to do it like that. We just going to make some records man. He went back and did a whole other verse. It was clean.”
As HipHopDX points out, the album also featured “Guess Whose Back” with Jay, and Scarface insisted he’d rather stay out of any beef and keep it off his own work, adding “I watch the bombs fly over head, but I never reach in and grab one,” he shared. That ain’t where I’m at, I’m not in there.”
Of course, now Nas and Jay are on good terms, with the two teaming up for “Bath Salts” off DMX’s latest album and “Sorry Not Sorry” with DJ Khaled.
