Rap god “Nasty” Nas stole the show this weekend at Coachella, featuring a surprise appearance from Jay Z and P. Diddy.
Hip Hop heads everywhere were kissing the very earth they walked on when Nas came out Saturday night for his Coachella Weekend 1 performance. It was no ordinary concert; for 2014 marks the twentieth anniversary of Nas’ infamous 1994 album, Illmatic, that went on to inform and inspire the rest of rap’s legacy. As homage to the legendary work, Nas declared this year “year of the Illmatic XX”, and has been dropping jewels for fans since.
The best one so far, of course, has been this very Coachella performance, where for the first time, Nas performed Illmatic back to front, claiming he wanted to “take us back to 1994, to the days of cassette tapes. Right when “Whose World Is This” finished on the line “I’m out for presidents to represent me”, the crowd lost it as none other than fellow New yorker Jay-Z walked on stage and dove into a performance of “Dead Presidents II”, which remixes the Nas track. As if that weren’t amazing enough, soon thereafter P. Diddy (Sean Combs) came on to join in the madness for “Hate Me Now”. The cherry on top was the amazing sample of Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” with “it Ain’t Hard To Tell”, the first single of Illmatic. After going through the 10 track album faithfully, he added hits “One Mic” and “Made You Look”. The performance marked history in the truest sense; both by its very essence but also in the album it was commemorating. Take a look at the full set below, it is 100% worth your time!
After the set, Nas released the double remix of Illmatic, featuring re-mastered originals and, much to our delight, 10 extra tracks of remixes and freestyle recordings from 1994. Spotify also just released an Illmatic landmark today, so go and tune in!