Nas Talks ‘The Lost Tapes 2,’ Hip-Hop & Upcoming Children’s Book on ‘The Daily Show’: Watch

Rania Aniftos
·2 min read
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.

Ahead of the July 19 release of his upcoming Lost Tapes sequel, Nas stopped by The Daily Show With Trevor Noah to chat about his busy life these days.

The duo reminisced on meeting at the World Cup in Russia in 2018, when Noah mentioned that the rapper didn’t talk about working on a record when they met. “I didn’t know,” Nas replied. “We was working on it for a couple of years and I didn’t really know what to do with these songs because they weren’t really songs I wanted to put on the record. They were just sitting there and I always thought I would come back to them and finish them off later, but it never happened. So I’m sitting there with all these songs starting to pile up and I’m like, “Oh I did a Lost Tapes album 17 years ago, and I think it’s time to make another one.”

More from Billboard

The Lost Tapes 2 will feature unreleased cuts from Hip-Hop Is Dead, Untitled, Life Is Good, and Nasir, with a number of superstar production contibutors such as beats from luminaries such as Kanye West, Pete Rock, Hit-Boy, Swizz Beatz,RZA, The Alchemist, No I.D., Statik Selektah, Pharrell and more.     

On the rising popularity of hip-hop in the mainstream, Nas expressed much excitement. “I was hopeful that it would turn out this way and I would be around to see it,” he raved. “Thank God I am. It’s a great time to be a hip-hop artist.”

One of the more unexpected project that Nas is working on is a children’s book. “That, I didn’t see happening,” he said, met with laughter from the audience. “I’m into education for kids. I have two kids, so I want to see the best for our kids out here.”

Watch the full interview here, beginning at the 21-minute mark.

Best of Billboard