{"id":18547,"date":"2010-10-07T17:19:50","date_gmt":"2010-10-07T15:19:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blackouthiphop.com\/?p=18547"},"modified":"2010-10-07T17:23:05","modified_gmt":"2010-10-07T15:23:05","slug":"nas-pens-a-letter-to-def-jam-regarding-the-lost-tapes-2-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/nas-pens-a-letter-to-def-jam-regarding-the-lost-tapes-2-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Nas pens a letter to Def Jam regarding the &#8220;Lost Tapes 2&#8221; project"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"18548\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/nas-pens-a-letter-to-def-jam-regarding-the-lost-tapes-2-project\/nas_letter_reading_rapradar\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/nas_letter_reading_rapradar.jpg?fit=540%2C394&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"540,394\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"nas_\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/nas_letter_reading_rapradar.jpg?fit=540%2C394&amp;ssl=1\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/nas_letter_reading_rapradar.jpg?fit=540%2C394&amp;ssl=1\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/nas_letter_reading_rapradar.jpg?fit=640%2C394&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" title=\"nas_\" width=\"640\" height=\"394\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-18548\" \/><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>From: Nas<br \/>\nTo: LA Reid, Steve Bartels, Steve Gawley, Michael Seltzer, Joseph Borrino, Chris Hicks<br \/>\nSubject: PUT MY SHIT OUT!<\/p>\n<p>Peace to all,<\/p>\n<p>With all do respect to you all, Nas is NOBODY&#8217;s slave. This is not the 1800&#8217;s, respect me and I will respect you.<\/p>\n<p>I won&#8217;t even tap dance around in an email, I will get right into it. People connect to the Artist @ the end of the day, they don&#8217;t connect with the executives. Honestly, nobody even cares what label puts out a great record, they care about who recorded it. Yet time and time again its the executives who always stand in the way of a creative artist&#8217;s dream and aspirations. You don&#8217;t help draw the truth from my deepest and most inner soul, you don&#8217;t even do a great job @ selling it. The #1 problem with DEF JAM is pretty simple and obvious, the executives think they are the stars. You aren&#8217;t&#8230;. not even close. As a matter of fact, you wish you were, but it didn&#8217;t work out so you took a desk job. To the consumer, I COME FIRST. Stop trying to deprive them! I have a fan base that dies for my music and a RAP label that doesn&#8217;t understand RAP. Pretty fucked up situation<\/p>\n<p>This isn&#8217;t the 90&#8217;s though. Beefing with record labels is so 15 years ago. @ this point I just need you all to be very clear where I stand and how I feel about &#8220;my label.&#8221; I could go on twitter or hot 97 tomorrow and get 100,000 protesters @ your building but I choose to walk my own path my own way because since day one I have been my own man. I did business with Tommy Mottola and Donnie Einer, two of the most psycho dudes this business ever created. I worked well with them for one major reason&#8230;&#8230;. they believed in me. The didn&#8217;t give a fuck about what any radio station or magazine said&#8230;.those dudes had me.<\/p>\n<p>Lost Tapes is a movement and a very important set up piece for my career as it stands. I started this over 5 years ago @ Columbia and nobody knew what it was or what it did but the label put it out as an LP and the fans went crazy for it and I single handlely built a new brand of rap albums. It&#8217;s smart and after 5 years it&#8217;s still a head of the game. This feels great and you not feeling what I&#8217;m feeling is disturbing. Don&#8217;t get in the way of my creativity. We are aligned with the stars here, this is a movement. There is a thing called KARMA that comes to haunt you when you tamper with the aligning stars. WE ARE GIVING THE PEOPLE EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT. Stop throwing dog shit on a MAGICAL moment.<\/p>\n<p>You don&#8217;t get another Nas recording that doesn&#8217;t count against my deal&#8230;.PERIOD! Keep your bullshit $200,000.00 fund. Open the REAL budget. This is a New York pioneers ALBUM, there ain&#8217;t many of us. I am ready to drop in the 4th quarter. You don&#8217;t even have shit coming out! Stop being your own worst enemy. Let&#8217;s get money!<\/p>\n<p>-N.Jones <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From: Nas To: LA Reid, Steve Bartels, Steve Gawley, Michael Seltzer, Joseph Borrino, Chris Hicks&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pG6fW-4P9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackouthiphop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}