In 1994, Nas put out his debut album, Illmatic. There’s been a lot of fanfare for the 20th anniversary, and for good reason.
“Illmatic is, in my opinion, and a lot of people’s opinion, the finest hip hop album ever been created,” says Jay Kang, science and technology editor for NEWYORKER.COM. He was a gigantic hip hop fan throughout the 1990’s. “It’s the sort of cinematic quality of Illmatic, the storytelling in Illmatic, the writing, even of hooks in Illmatic.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_srvHOu75vM
But even though Kang thinks that Illmatic is one of the best rap albums of all time, he says that Nas was never really able to meet those heights again.
“It’s been 20 years. Really, 20 years of a lot of people watching him slowly get worse and worse.”
Kang doesn’t really listen to Nas or even very much rap nowadays. He says that he basically just aged out of finding new music. And who would want to follow the musical decline of a cherished figure? But one day he saw an email in his inbox from a friend. It had a link to a Youtube video called NAS = YOUR OLD DROOG?
“There’s something weird going on here,” his friend wrote.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQgLtTUYiQQ
“I clicked on the link.” Kang says, “Within 40 seconds into the song, I was like, ‘Oh yeah, this is Nas. What is he doing?’”
The video was a video of a song by Your Old Droog, an unknown rapper who had come out with a few singles and an EP earlier this year. He was mysterious — no photos or social media accounts. The only thing evident on the internet was his music. And a few people on the internet notice that that music kind of sounded like Nas.
“The cadence is amost exactly the same,” says Kang. “The way that they end their bars is almost exactly the same. The pronunciation of things is the same.”
Kang was really excited. All of a sudden, it seemed like Nas was good again, and he was announcing it in a super fun way. If Nas really was behind Your Old Droog, the project could be legendary. So Kang spread the word.
“I immediately sent t to about 15 different people that I’m friends that would have opinions on this,” Kang explains. “Every single one of them was like, ‘Yeah, this is Nas.’ The responses ranged from, ‘This is definitely Nas’ to ‘This is really, probably, most likely Nas.’ Nobody really had much doubt about it.
That doubt was being sustained by more than just the way Your Old Droog sounded. Everything Droog put out into the world seemed to connect with Nas. Let me count the ways:
Droog is a reference to the movie and book A Clockwork Orange. It means “friend” in the made up language for the book, Nadsat. Was Your Old Droog, “your old friend,” Nas?
If you re-arrange the word “Nadsat,” you get “dat Nas” — as in, “that Nas.”
THE WEBSITE MASS APPEAL was one of the first ones to feature Your Old Droog, and Nas is the associate publisher of that site.
It’s the 20th anniversary of Illmatic — a good time to stage a comeback.
Droog mentions Illmatic on the song, “LOOSEY IN THE STORE WITH PENNIES.”*
Nas has even tried to pass himself off as someone else in the past. He pitch shifted his voice up to sound like a female MC on the song, “LIVE NOW”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-Nlz8ot2FI
I could go on and on. But I won’t, because someone else already has. The rapper and videographer MarcoPolovision made a 37-MINUTE VIDEO with his girlfriend, Kiki, meticulously detailing the mountain of evidence That Nas was Droog. He’s a huge Nas fan, and was even more fired up then Kang when he first Droog.
“It just got entertaining to us to try to catch the stuff that he was trying to say,” says Polovision. “And then it became very easy to spot everything he was trying to say, because a lot is hidden behind metaphors, behind double entendres.”
Polovision and Kiki’s video received nearly 15k views. The controversy was written about in hip hop blogs and magazines. A few people tried to dispel the rumors by saying that they had met Droog, and that Droog was actually a white guy in his 20’s from Coney Island. It was getting to be a real story. Of course, both Nas and Droog remained totally silent.
One thing was certain, though. The controversy was helping to spread the word about Your Old Droog. His tracks have HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PLAYS ON SOUNDCLOUD. He announced a show at the New York City venue, the Studio at Webster Hall. It holds three or four hundred people, and it sold out.
Kang was watching all of this happen, and he was thinking about writing an article. So he reached out to music writer who said he knew Droog, and he waited for an answer.
Some time after Kang reached out to that music writer, Droog emailed him and said, “Hey, I hear you’re looking for me.” So they made a plan to meet up at a subway station in Coney Island. The man who appeared was “boyish, bearded, and permanently scowling,” according to Kang. He was tall, lanky, and white. He said he was Your Old Droog.
Droog told Kang his story. He’s 25, and his parents are from Ukraine. He grew up in Coney Island, listening to hip hop, and he’s been rapping since he was a kid.
While they were talking, Kang realized that he had no way of verifying that the man who called himself Droog was really the man who rapped on the record. Luckily, Droog brought Kang to a recording studio, and rapped in front of him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0-Wf_jurZ4
That’s all Kang needed. He was pretty much convinced. He wrote an article for the New Yorker’s website, and called it “NAS IN NOT YOUR OLD DROOG.” The same day, Droog put out A VIDEO OF HIMSELF RAPPING IN A STUDIO.
Kang is 100% convinced that Nas isn’t droog. But even so, before Droog’s debut show at Webster Hall, Kang was worried that Nas was going to show up and “disgrace the New Yorker,” as he puts it.
Kang’s worry underscores just how convincing the evidence really is. He met Droog, and Droog rapped in front of him, yet he was still concerned that this was all still a stunt, perpetrated by Nas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT7JhM1Nluc
olovision was far less convinced than Kang was. Before the show, he put up a new video, which he sent around privately and later made public, called “PROOF NAS WILL BE AT WEBSTER HALL AS DROOG”. It showed him on the Webster Hall ticket page, mousing around a weird photo in the sidebar. It was a mysterious figure’s face, in negative exposure. He took a screenshot, and reversed the negative. The result: The photo was the back cover ofIllmatic, with Nas’s face, and around his right eye, someone had superimposed the signature Clockwork Orange eyelash. For Polovision, the controversy was far from settled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQoo4zNCUQk
Polovision went to Webster Hall, filmed the show, and POSTED IT TO YOUTUBE. The show starts with dimmed lights, and a DJ on stage. All of a sudden, someone starts rapping from backstage. For one suspenseful minute, the mystery continues. Is it Nas?
Then, a figure emerges. Tall, lanky, white. It’s Droog, not Nas.
Droog performed for about a half hour. Nas didn’t come out. People were left to decide for themselves how they felt.
“‘I wasn’t able to go to the show, but I started seeing photos of him on Instagram, and checked stuff on Twitter,” says Kang. “People seemed to be like, ‘Oh man, it’s not Nas, but this kid is pretty good.’”
“I was there,” Polovison says. “People were fucking hurt by the fact that it was not Nas. Their energy was very, very sad and betrayed outside of that show. When they left, everybody looked like they got out of detention, like they just got out of jail. Nobody was like, ‘Yeah! Good thing that shit wasn’t Nas!’”
MarcoPolovision still isn’t totally convinced. After seeing Droog live, he’s updated his hypothesis.
“Upon deeper research, my new idea or theory of it is that it’s different versions of it,” he explains. “It could be a version with Droog on it, and it could be a version with Nas on it. At this point, we’re still trying to figure out if Nas is the actual voice on the recordings, or if he just wrote the music, and that’s his involvement in it.”
“Those videos are great,” Kang says of Polovision’s work. “I enjoy the passion with which MarcoPolovison is pursuing this. It seems pretty far-fetched at this point.”
After 20 years people are still waiting for an official Nas album that can stand toe-to-toe with Illmatic. But that day may never come.
“Would it be nice if Nas came back and started rapping like he used to, and put out three more great albums, and then retired?” Kang asks. “Yeah. I think everybody wants that. But there’s other stuff to listen to.”
This episode was produced by ALEX KAPELMAN, with production help from WHITNEY JONES. Special thanks to Sacha Jenkins, Oliver Wang, and Will Hanz.
*Note from Alex: I accidentally pronounced “Loosey” as “loosely” in the audio version of this episode. I apologize for the mistake. To atone, here’s a link to a NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE ABOUT LOOSEYS.
