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Nas Talks Slang, 'Stillmatic' And 'Hip Hop Is Dead'

5:46 p.m. · December 15, 2011 · by David Padula

While we wait for Nas to drop Life Is Good, the Queensbridge rapper sat down with XXL to talk about Stillmatic and Hip Hop Is Dead, which respectively turn 10 and 5 years old next week. Asked about the word "stan" catching on in hip hop after his use of it on "Ether"--despite Eminem's song of the same name coming out earlier--Nas responds, "I never even thought of that. Wow! Yea, man. I don’t even take credit for it. That’s hip-hop. That’s what hip-hop does."  Apparently, he and Jay-Z don't really talk about their past feud, despite the interesting conversation that could-be. My favorite answer Nas gives is when he's asked about using the signature riff from "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" by Iron Butterfly twice in his career. It appears for the second time as a backdrop for the rapper on the title track to 2006's Hip Hop Is Dead, and Nas says:

...that was the joke. Hip-hop is dead. I’m gonna do the same beat again from my last album that was my last single. This is gonna be the shit again. And will didn’t even know it at the time, will.i.am when he played it for me and I told him that’s why I have to do this record. For me it was perfect. I know people didn’t get it, but it was my little joke.

Check out the rest of the piece over at XXL. [2DBZ]