‘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. – Nas
I think the hip-hop purists are purists through and through. They’re here to criticize all of us. That’s just how it is. We as MC’s criticize each other. That’s the nature of hip-hop. – Nas
I never stood for any president in my life, never voted, before Barack Obama. It changed my life to vote. It starts there with me. I never cared for politics before Barack Obama. I never thought it mattered to people like me. – Nas
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. – Nas
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
No matter who you are, black, white, green, there’s going to be things in your way, you know what I mean? – Nas
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. – Nas
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. – Nas
Anybody I’m dating, I don’t want them to talk about my music. I don’t talk about my music to them. – Nas
When you have a daughter, you want to protect her from the things that I’ve seen out there, you know, the things that’s out there that ain’t good for her. It’s a crazy world we live in. – Nas
Hip-hop lasted and survived all these years that you have to give it credit. Even though it’s not up to people’s expectations anymore, its still here, and that’s says a lot. – Nas
The things that I have said when I was young and curious about whatever the subject matter was, I respect those – those are growing pains. Even if you make mistakes, I go back to those things, my not-so-great moments because those are my truest moments; those are my human moments. I’m not even mad at the things I said that were a little dicey. – Nas
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. – Nas
I like the way hip-hop is now. It’s grown up enough so that it can get involved with politics if it feels like it. – Nas
You can’t please everybody. You’d be crazy if you’re trying to. So take some time out to do some things for yourself. – Nas
I had a pretty public divorce. They’re not easy – divorces – and it took me a long time to really get through. – Nas
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. – Nas