Nas vs. Jay-Z

[Sekou]

I think that Nas would ether Jay-Z in a battle!

[GladHeAteHerr]

I say Nas, he has more stand-out material..Jay-Z has too much just average stuff.

[OMEGA]

Outside of a cool voice, great flow and cool lines here and there, Jay-Z is quite unremarkable imo. Nas is a fucking poet. Mention a Jay-Z verse that's as good lyrical/content wise as, say, Patience from Distant Relatives.

[FreeSpeech]

Outside of a cool voice, great flow and cool lines here and there, Jay-Z is quite unremarkable imo. Nas is a fucking poet. Mention a Jay-Z verse that's as good lyrical/content wise as, say, Patience from Distant Relatives.

Seriously? That's easy...

They say an eye for an eye, we both lose our sight
And two wrongs don't make a right
But when you been wrong and you know all along that it's just one life
At what point does one fight? (Good question right!)
'Fore you knock the war, try to put your dogs in it
Ten-and-a-halfs, for a minute-and-a-half
Bet that stops all the grinnin and the laughs
When you play the game of life and the win ain't in the bag
When your options is none and the pen is all you have
or the block, niggaz standin tight, there's limits on the ave
Tryin to cop or shot-call theyself cleansin in the cash
But can't put they name on paper cause, then you on blast
Mr. President, there's drugs in our residence
Tell me what you want me to do, come break bread with us
Mr. Governor, I swear there's a cover up
Every other corner there's a liquor store - fuck is up?

Justify My Thug

Nas' verse in Patience is boring, his rhymes are unimpressive, and his delivery is lazy. Just because he's asking who wrote the Bible or Qu'uran doesn't mean he's deep.

[FreeSpeech]

Jay does have better beats with the exception of Illmatic and It was written. However, Jay's beats have constantly outshined him for the entirety of his career, and that's not a good look at all.

Haha Illmatic beats are NOT better than Jay beats. They're good for the time, and some are classics, but they don't touch beats like Moment of Clarity, Renegade, Lucifer, Justify My Thug, or tons of other Jay beats. Oh well, it's all preference I guess.

I'd rather listen to "boring" songs about different aspects of the world and societies troubles then listen to easy flowing music about selling crack 20 years a go and now sitting on a yacht endlessly.

Again, preference, but music doesn't always have to be deep. Both Nas and Jay have "chilling" tracks, but Jay's are better.

Lol. Are you serious? I doubt Hov would be able to say that with a straight face.

How is Nas more creative? I'm not talking lyrics or concepts, I'm talking about the actual music. Jay has switched up his album sounds way more, Nas generally limits himself to conservative, typically bland standard hip hop beats. Please don't misconstrue what I'm saying and think I hate Nas BTW, I love him, he just isn't as listenable as Jay.

I've listened to that song about a hundred times....I fail to see what you're getting at. One moment of clarity doesn't outweigh a decade of inconsistencies.

You're ignorant if you think Jay doesn't have meaningful songs. I just picked Moment Of Clarity as an example. Justify My Thug, Lost One, 99 Problems, Guns & Roses, Renegade, Hard Knock Life, Never Change, I could go on and on. I feel like by "a decade of inconsistencies" you're talking about B3

What persona would that be exactly? There's not that many MC's who when they get on a track with another artist, that listeners listen to every word. Nas is one of them, more so than Jay.

I don't think you know exactly what mic presence is...It has little to nothing to do with lyrics...

Crossover potential doesn't mean more versatile. There's a massive difference here, and Jay isn't even close to Nas' versatility.

How is Nas versatile? All his albums stick to the same format. And Jay's crossover songs (at least his older ones) weren't BS radio songs, they were great songs regardless of their crossover appeal.

Lol @ Jay building an empire. Jay admittedly screwed over close friends repeatedly to get to where he is. He practically stole and did dealings behind his best friends to get a competitive advantage on his own business partners. Where I come from that doesn't make you more interesting, that makes you a rat

Not saying you're wrong, but can you even give me some concrete examples? And regardless of how he did it, it's impressive. He's not a businessman, he's a business, man! His entreprenurial skills are really incredible, and if you don't think he has an empire, just look at what he's done. Roca Wear, Rocafella, Roc Nation, best selling memoir, 40/40 Club, NBA owner, etc. That doesn't have anything to do with Nas, musically, but Jay is one smart dude.

Again, i love both, but Jay is just better IMO.

[OMEGA]

I used to think that Nas had shit beats, but I've been bumping most of his albums, and with the exception of Untitled (blows), his beat selection is pretty fucking badass. The one album that shines the most imo is Hip Hop Is Dead. That's the "modern sounding" Nas I want to hear. Beats like Carry on Tradition, Where Are They Now, Black Republican, Blunt Ashes are stunning.

[stillmatic]

Haha Illmatic beats are NOT better than Jay beats. They're good for the time, and some are classics, but they don't touch beats like Moment of Clarity, Renegade, Lucifer, Justify My Thug, or tons of other Jay beats. Oh well, it's all preference I guess.

Illmatic as an album has better beats than any album of Jay's has. You have Pete Rock, Large Professor, Premo and Q-Tip responsible for the production of the entire album. It doesn't get better than that.

Again, preference, but music doesn't always have to be deep. Both Nas and Jay have "chilling" tracks, but Jay's are better.

Nas wouldn't be called Esco and Nasty Nas if he just made deep music. He has countless easy going and free listening music.

How is Nas more creative? I'm not talking lyrics or concepts, I'm talking about the actual music. Jay has switched up his album sounds way more, Nas generally limits himself to conservative, typically bland standard hip hop beats.

Why would you not include lyrics and musical concepts when talking about creativity. That is all about creativity. So you're telling me that Eminem is creative because he can make songs like "We made you" which are "switched up", but you're not including songs like 'Stan' when talking about creativity (using your logic here). Creativity has everything to do with the concepts and lyrics.

You're ignorant if you think Jay doesn't have meaningful songs. I just picked Moment Of Clarity as an example. Justify My Thug, Lost One, 99 Problems, Guns & Roses, Renegade, Hard Knock Life, Never Change, I could go on and on. I feel like by "a decade of inconsistencies" you're talking about B3

I never said he doesn't have meaningful songs. I was just responding to your claim about 'Moment for clarity' explaining all of Jay's deficiencies, when it clearly doesn't. All that song did was calm his critics down for 4 minutes until they heard the next Jay-Z song. A decade of inconsistencies = everything he did between Reasonable Doubt to The Blueprint, then after Blueprint 'til now, further ups and downs.

I don't think you know exactly what mic presence is...It has little to nothing to do with lyrics...

If listeners are listening to every word you're saying when you're on the mic, that's presence, it's impact. I'm not saying that's entirely all mic presence, but it's a fair portion of it. So explain what you mean by mic presence.

How is Nas versatile? All his albums stick to the same format. And Jay's crossover songs (at least his older ones) weren't BS radio songs, they were great songs regardless of their crossover appeal.

lol. All of Jay's crossover songs were nothing BUT radio songs. Songs like Can I Get A, Sunshine, Jigga my nigga, Big Pimpin etc. The vast majority of these songs all had some sort of R&B features to help his crossover. If you're trying say Nas is not versatile, then you're clearly wrong homie. Not even different type of concepts within an album or song, but Nas wasn't called Nasty Nas or Esco because he was just some sort of soft rapper.

Not saying you're wrong, but can you even give me some concrete examples? And regardless of how he did it, it's impressive. He's not a businessman, he's a business, man! His entreprenurial skills are really incredible, and if you don't think he has an empire, just look at what he's done. Roca Wear, Rocafella, Roc Nation, best selling memoir, 40/40 Club, NBA owner, etc. That doesn't have anything to do with Nas, musically, but Jay is one smart dude.

Umm...it's common knowledge. He's said so himself practically. Read on the Rocafella sale and read everything Dame Dash has said about it since, read everything Kareem Biggs has said since. Read everything all the Rocafella artists have said since. Read everything Beanie Sigel has said, read about what Jay did to Beanie at a Philly show in 2009 by snitching to the cops. Jay stole an empire, he didn't build it. He's simply another Puffy, a snake. Not saying he wasn't smart, just saying he did it by losing most of his morals and values. This is the major reason as to why Jay is disliked a lot, not because of his music, but his character.

I know Nas and Hov are cool now, but if anyone listened to Distant Relatives, well the Nas verse on this song, it's almost clearly directed at Jay. I'm not saying he did it as a diss to Jay, he did it unintentionally talking about the world, but it applies PERFECTLY to Hov's dealings, and Nas' morals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH-KBON4cqY

[Hiphopdane]

Nas any day. He has stayed true to hip hop and is still making great albums and potential classics to this day. He is arguably the most creative rapper there has ever been cus of the concepts he constantly comes up with: Fetus, Book of rhymes, One mic, I gave you power, 2nd childhood and pretty much the whole Distant Relatives album.

Jay-Z on the other hand used to be the illest rapper on the whole planet but chose to sell out. Fair enough, if you just don't have it anymore and are doing your best but it is so anti-hip hop to go in the booth with money in mind. Fuck that.

Nas represents the soul of hip hop to the fullest.