HYPETRAK 专访说唱歌手 Nas

今年是纽约说唱歌手 Nas 的第一张个人专辑《Illmatic》20 周年纪念，除了筹备纪录片之余，Nas 更在首周的 Coachella 音乐节上献唱了整张《Illmatic》的歌曲，并携手当年的竞争对手 Jay Z 以及 P Diddy 同台演出，献唱了《Dead Presidents》，《Made You Look》和《Hate Me Now》等单曲。随后 Nas 也接受了我们 HYPETRAK 的访问，除了分享了对现今 Hip-Hop 文化的个人见解外，更透露将于今年内上演的纪录片《Time is Illmatic》以及正准备开业的球鞋店铺 12 AM RUN 的有关细节等。留意以下部分访问内容的同时，也可登入到 HYPETRAK 查看完整访问。

In the trailer for Time is Illmatic, Illmatic came from the days of ‘Wildstyle.’ Do you feel certain elements of the hip-hop culture (graffiti, breakdance, etc) are underrepresented in today’s culture?

I felt that it was underrepresented back then and today’s culture as well, so that’s why I really wanted to put a light on it in my music and in that first album. So yeah, it’s definitely a forgotten art right now but back then it wasn’t even really long since Wildstyle came out when I put out Illmatic. It was like those eras were like worlds apart to most people.

You recently performed with Q-Tip (The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon) and Jay Z (here in Coachella). Is a joint tour a possibility?

(Laughs) At this moment, we just celebrating the 20 years and it makes me think about all those guys like A Tribe Called Quest came before me. I think this is 20 years for OutKast too, and you know, artists like Snoop has more than 20 years, you know? So it just makes me think about all of us guys in that class, and Jay and everybody, and it makes me feel joyous about this whole thing that we’re around and getting on stage. So I’m just happy to get on stage with any of those guys from my class, you know?

There’s a new sneaker boutique you’re opening up in Las Vegas called 12AM RUN, what’s the process behind that and what made you decide on doing a sneaker shop?

I mean that was an easy one, since I was a kid I used to go to the street in Long Island City and go shop there. It went from me wanting to have a closet that looked like a sneaker store, I’ve done that a long time ago, so the next step would be a sneaker store, you know? And that’s how I look at life, I like food so there may be a restaurant coming one day. You know, it’s things like that that I’m supposed to be doing, so it’s just about life and culture, and fashion and lifestyle.

Can we expect some of your personal favorite sneakers to be available in the shop?

Oh yeah, like the Air Max 87, whew man… Of course Jordans, almost all of the Jordans are my favorite. And you know everything new that’s happening. I used to wear Ellesse, Saucony, I used to wear a lot of different brands out there so yeah, I wanna bring my favorites in there.