Vibe.com, January 30th, 2006
The rapper had everyone talking last week when he signed with Def Jam and now the streets are buzzing again with the news that Nas will release his first album under his Def Jam contract, on his own imprint called the Jones Experience.
"I've been in this business a long time and know what a great deal is," the rapper told Billboard. "I signed a significant and excellent situation."
The imprint will focus "first and foremost on hip hop," Nas continued, adding that he will consider releasing albums in other genres of music. "This is so much bigger than me and Jay-Z. We're both excited by what this could potentially mean for hip hop as a whole."
Under Nas' new deal, that has him switching from Columbia to Def Jam, Island Def Jam and Sony Music will work as financial partners in the rappers' first two albums of the four-album deal. Each album has a budget of $3 million. Sony will get ownership of the masters from Nas' 11 years of work with Columbia, and will retain the right to release a greatest-hits collection on its own. Nas has also agreed to deliver two new tracks for a Sony hits set.
"Hip-hop needed this," Mark Pitts, who helped negotiate the truce between Nas and Jay-Z last fall told the magazine. Pitts' management partner, Wayne Barrow, added that he would like to see the truce bring a "different sensibility to hip-hop and take it back to the origin of what a beef is. Battling over lyrical prowess is one thing, but to turn it into a violent scenario is another. Kids are mimicking these situations as if they're real."
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