Nas took home his first Grammy at the 2021 award ceremony.
Nas was apart of a long list of Black legends who have never been recognized by the Recording Academy. But that all changed in 2021 after the Queensbridge native won for Best Rap Album.
King’s Disease, which was executive produced by Hit-Boy, beat out D Smoke (Black Habits), Jay Electronica (A Written Testimony), Freddie Gibbs & Alchemist (Alfredo), and Royce 5’9’’ (The Allegory) for the honor.
Nas was nominated 14 times for a Grammy, and this marks the first win of his decades-long career.
The Grammy-award-winning album, King’s Disease, marks Nas’ fourteenth studio album and featured guest appearances from Charlie Wilson, Hit-Boy, Big Sean, Don Toliver, Lil Durk, Anderson Paak, Brucie B, Nas’s supergroup The Firm, Fivio Foreign, and ASAP Ferg.
The collection was met with positive reviews as Nas flawlessly bridged the gap between the new and old school Hip Hop generations over Hit-Boy’s beats. This album lived up to the expectation that the rap veteran’s collaboration with Kanye West, Nasir was supposed to.
Nas graciously explained Ye was “working on a lot” while publicly going through several mental health episodes.
“We spent time and I was working on ideas. He would give me a few loops and I would write to them but they weren’t finished,” he said on The Breakfast Club. “He was working on a lot. He had [Kid Cudi], he had Teyana Taylor, he had his album and I was the only one coming in starting fresh. So, I had less time with him. We really did that album the week it was supposed to come out.”
