BEEFS:
This is the 'Beefs' section of our site, this contains all the info and lyrics from Nas' beefs from throughout his career, including his beefs with Jay-Z, Tupac Shakur, 50 Cent, Benzino, and Cormega.

  NAS vs TUPAC
Not much to say really as you probably know all about this if you listen to 2pac's later music, as most of Nas diss songs were released after 2pac's demise in 1996, or shortly before. Unlike some other artists, Nas didnt disrespect 2pac after his death by releasing a diss track back to him, which you have to respect him for, unlike Mobb Deep, and LL Cool J. Instead he says that Tupac is his favourite rapper, and refers to him as a legend in many of his songs.
   The beef started because, due to faults of his own, Nas, got caught up in the Tupac (west) Vs Biggie (east) beef. Which of course Tupac wouldnt of liked as it initially had nothing to do with Nas. Tupac and Nas met each other at the House of Blues, where Tupac and Nas talked about this whole beef situation. Tupac told Nas that he was in no way involved and that he should not get caught up in it because he and Death Row had nothing but love for him. But then, Tupac listened to Nas' songs and he remarked that there was a song, "The Message", in which Nas was talking about fake thugs and it sounded as if Nas was talking about Tupac. Nas also liked to talk a lot about 'Thug Life' after Pac introduced it to the world, which got Tupac pissed because he was the man to represent it. Tupac accused Nas of biting his style and stealing his life for his songs. Nas even has a tattoo in the same place of Tupac's, and wore no shirt, like pac did, and wore his bandana in a similar way to pac in the video for 'Hate Me Now'. Also in the video to this song, Nas and Puffy are totally disrespecting Pac by being Crucified at the beginning just like the cover of Tupac's 'Makaveli: The 7 Day Theory' album, they also dress like 2Pac did and pour out the liquor like Pac and Dre did on the California Love Remix
  Tupac dissed Nas on songs like "Against all Odds" (see lyrics below) and in interviews, such as the interview about 'Death Row East'. The biggest publicity this beef got was most definately a long time after Tupac's murder, just before the official release of pac's posthumus album 'Better Dayz'. The reason for this was that as the tracklists were publicised by Tupac's label, Amaru Records, his fans were outraged that featuring on the track, 'Thugz Mansion Acooustic', was none other than Nas. Nas has always claimed that him and pac squashed thier beefs and were cool with each other. However SnoopDogg, a close friend of Tupac, commented on this claim by Nas saying on an MTV Documentary that what he hates most is rappers coming out and doing rhymes with Tupac knowing that when he was alive he hated them.

  Nas first said that this beef was squashed before Tupac's death in October 2001. Nas was on Hot 97. He said, "Man, Pac was my peoples. I had nothing but love for this cat. First time I seen him we cracked a Henny and he turned it to the head. It made me cry, I mean, I was drunk when I heard him talking about me on Makaveli. We met, it almost got ugly, but we made peace." However Snoop Dogg, and many Tupac fans still believe otherwise.

TALE OF THE MIXTAPES:
2pac on Nas, "Against All Odds":
“This little nigga named Nas thinks he live like me / Talkin bout he left the hospital took five like me / You living fantasies, nigga I reject your deposit / We shook Dre punk ass, now we out of the closet.”
2pac on Nas, "Against All Odds":
“God don't like ugly, It Was Written / Hey Nas, your whole damn style is bitten / You heard my melody, read about my life in the papers / All my run-ins with authorities, felonious capers / Now you wanna live my life, so what's the answer Nas? / Niggas that don't rhyme right, you've seen too many movies / Load em up against the wall, close his eyes / Since you lie you die, GOODBYE / Let the real live niggas hear the truth from me / What would you do if you was me nigga !”

  After Nas said what he said about Jay Z, Jigga did nothing. On Memphis Bleek's CD, 'Coming of Age', Jay Z said,"I'ma ball till I fall, what you think of that?" Nas took that as a diss to him and started the eef by getting on a track on his album, 'Nastradamus'. Nas and Jigga was continuing diss'n each other. On Jigga's Blueprint album, Jay Z made a song called,"The Takeover," which he dissed Nas and Mobb Deep. This was the highlight of the beef. This was a direct lyrical denounchment of Nas, and got Jay-Z much attention for the right reasons. On "Takeover," the much-discussed leadoff song from his universally acclaimed Blueprint album (2001). Jay-Z called out Nas for not having put out a "hot" album since Illmatic, among other reasons, and also made demeaning comments about Nas' woman, and mother of his child 'Destiny'. He also said that nas was a failing MC, and that his only hot album was 'Illmatic', (see lyrics below). And it didn't help that Jay-Z had indeed rose atop the New York rap scene, giving him ample justification to call out Nas, who had fallen from favor and receded from the public eye while he dealt with his personal issues, such as the recent death of his mother.

  After Jay-Z in the "Takeover" attacked Nas, Nas didn't come up with a reply diss immediately, he fired back months later when he was recording his album. No rush though. When Nas finally released the album, and the diss track to Jay-Z, the hype around the release was unreal, and this hype was met to great effect with the diss track, entitled "Ether", a killer diss to Jay Z. Nas completely rips apart his old rival Jay on the track. Nas comes off with some lyrically "controlled rage" and he comes off with some real sly condescending snaps calling Jigga, J.J. (from Good Times), we all know that J.J. Evans aka Jimmie walker was not a handsome brotha. Nas scolds Jay as a father would a son on 2 tracks. Nas assaults Jigga on many fronts. His personality as a misogynist, physical appearance, known history and speculative reputation. Nas was also continuing the assault on radio highlighting all of Jigga's flaws like his narcissism and his re-naming himself 'Jay Hovah' read 'Jehovah'. Nas is tighter lyrically than Jay-Z who is now essentially a pop rapper. This battle episode may cause Jigga to rethink his pop rap career. Nas can't hate on that, cause he was trying his hand at pop rap also remember that Oochie wali song/video or his prior Album. But because of this beef he returned to his "Illmatic" roots and captured that authentic rap spirit before he was written off. (see below for Ether lyrics).

  Jay-Z was so embarrassed by this diss track that he hit back, the very day that Nas' 'Ether' was released, with a 2 minute freestyle diss of his own! He claims the track was a freestyle, which is clearly untrue, as Jay-Z is no freestyler, and those rhymes are definately re-worked! By this time the beef had definately escualted, and people were hoping this wouldnt end like the Tupac vs Biggie beef as there was a danger that overzealous fans of each artist could escalate tensions. This may have been exacerbated by the fact that Jay-Z opens up his "Super Ugly" song with a call for Brooklyn to STAND UP. A sly attempt to regionalize the beef as Queens vs Brooklyn. Luckily nobody was buying into that nonsense. Most fans recognized the ignorant damage once done by East Coast vs West Coast separation. In the track, Jay-Z disses Nas' women, Carmen, by saying:

"me and a i got more in carmen (meant as in common) then just ballin n rhymen, get it? more in carmen" and
"i came in ur bentli bakseat, skeeted in ur jeep, left condoms on ur babyseat, hey nigga the gluvs is off, the love is done"

  People voted to see which song was better and Nas' "Ether" came out on top. Altough Jay-Z did reply again on mixtapes, such as "Got Myself A Gun", a rip-off of Nas's "Got Yourself A..." which is a very brave reply to such a diss track as "Ether" is, and always will be, Jay-Z just couldnt retaliate in such a way that could take the shine of "Ether". As of today Jigga is embarrassed by his reply song to Nas called "Super Ugly". Even Jay-Z's biggest groupie, Funkmaster Flex shied away from him as of press time. This said a lot because most of the time that mic flex holds to his mouth can be mistaken for something else. It can be said that Jay-Z was on "da low" for a long time after his humiliation. In fact his mother insisted that he apologize about dissing Nas's baby mother. His mother was quoted as saying "it was in poor taste".

  Jay-Z was mature about it and did follow his mom's advice. He appeared on HOT97 radio station and publicly apologized to Nas's baby mother (Carmen) the next day.

  Jigga tried to end the beef and Nas called him soft. They still say things about each other, but just indirectly. I personally think that Nas won the beef battle, early on it seemed as if Jay-Z might have won this with a few spirited barbs, but Nas’ “Ether” of his massive album "Stillmatic" has become a heralded classic. And also with Nas's rapid succession of incredible albums -- two a year for the last two years, one better than the other, a double album on the way – have made him the clear winner.

TALE OF THE MIXTAPES:
Nas on Jay Z, "Ether":
“Foxy got you hot 'cause you kept your face in her puss / What you think, you gettin girls now 'cause of your looks?”
“Eminem murdered you on your own shit / You a dick-ridin faggot, you love the attention!”
“Is he Dame Diddy, Dame Daddy or Dame Dummy? / Oh, I get it, you Biggie and he's Puffy / Rockafeller died of AIDS, that was the end of his chapter / And that's the guy y'all chose to name your company after? / Put it together, I rock hoes, y'all rock fellas!”
Jay Z on Nas "Takeover":
“Youse the fag model for Karl Kani/Esco ads / Went from, Nasty Nas to Esco's trash / Had a spark when you started but now you're just garbage / Fell from top ten to not mentioned at all / to your bodyguard's "Oochie Wally" verse better than yours / Matter fact you had the worst flow on the whole fuckin song / but I know - the sun don't shine, then son don't shine / That's why your - LAAAAAAAME! - career come to a end / There's only so long fake thugs can pretend / Nigga; you ain't live it you / witnessed it from your folks pad / You scribbled in your notepad and created your life!”
“You said you been in this ten / I've been in it five - smarten up Nas / Four albums in ten years nigga? I could divide / That's one every let's say two, two of them shits was due / One was - NAHHH, the other was "Illmatic" / That's a one hot album every ten year average / And that's so - LAAAAAAAME! Nigga switch up your flow / Your shit is garbage, but you try and kick knowledge? / (Get the fuck outta here) You niggaz gon' learn to respect the king / Don't be the next contestant on that Summer Jam screen!”

"I need a good opponent to go after, then it's all good," Nas said with a smile on Friday in New York. "The game is looking terrible. It's a lot of guys out here, 'CB4' gangstas, making the rap game look bad. Fourteen-year-olds might be believing in these guys, and a lot of these guys that are here are walking train wrecks and they're miserable. I pray for the upliftment of hip-hop, so I'm working on this next album, NASDAQ Dow Jones, coming to y'all real soon."

  Jadakiss on the other hand, went to the extreme by releasing a few diss tracks in reply to fifty's diss of him, and has even threatened to release a whole album of tracks dissing back at fifty!

  However more recently, months and months after 50 dropped his diss at nas, Nas has finally decided to hit back at him with the track "Dont Body Yaself".

TALE OF THE MIXTAPES:
50 Cent on Nas, "Piggy Bank":
"Kelis say her milkshake bring all the boys to the yard / then Nas went and tattooed the bitch on his arm / Im way out in Cali, niggas know you cuz / First thing they say about u, you's a sucka for love / This is chess, not checkers, these are warning shots / After ya next move, I'll give ya what I got. (YEEAH)"
Nas on 50 Cent "Dont Body Yaself":
"It's on nigga / I'm a bury them / Niggaz don't want beef they vegetarian / Scared of pussy you climbed out a caesarian / I push ya grown ass back in your mothers womb / You need 9 more months / Your crews 9 more punks / You rhyme on stuff and claim I didn't sign y'all up / If I sign y'all I'm on dust / Ya we from the same hood but nigga what?! / When y'all was tryin to rap y'all was makin me proud / Man now you fucked up, down on your luck, runnin your mouth man / Why don't be a real man, say you need a lil help / And I might help your ass off the shelf"