I sit here writing this whilst listening to one of my favourite rappers, and his classic album, It Was Written. My laptop is strategically balanced on an old University textbook and my one and a half year old niece sits to the right of me.....she nods her head appreciatively as track two ‘The Message’ plays.
I chuckle to myself thinking she’s already got great taste in music; she’ll be a connoisseur before she hits secondary school.
I then remember why I’m listening to Nas and why I sat down to write this in the first place, and it occurs to me that when my niece is of that age (children leave primary education in the UK at 10/11 years old), she may not even get a chance to appreciate true Hip Hop.
At the moment the charts are dominated by watered down sing-along tracks, which are being masqueraded as Hip Hop, whilst artists like Nas battle with their record labels to put out music with more substance.
Nas, who’s real name is Nasir Jones, announced the planned release of compilation album the Lost Tapes 2 back in September, which is the sequel to the critically acclaimed Lost Tapes (released in 2002). 
Regarding his proposed release the Queens Bridge, New York rapper, recently wrote an email to his record label Def Jam, which was leaked on the internet.
The email was addressed to Def Jam executives and criticised the label for standing in the way of his artistic liberties and not giving him the support he requires to release/promote the Lost Tapes 2.
Nas began the email by stating that he “is nobody’s slave” and that “this is not the 1800’s, respect me and I will respect you”.
He then went on to write: “Time and time again it’s the executives who always stand in the way of a creative artist’s dream and aspirations”. He later also stressed that the Lost Tapes is a movement and an important part of his career and the 37 year old warned Def Jam to not get in the way of his creativity.
Conflict between the artists that make the music and the record labels that market and distribute the music, is nothing new in the industry. The late Michael Jackson had disputes with his label, Sony, rock band The Beatles faced problems with EMI and rap duo Outkast are currently in a disagreement with their label, Jive Records.
On the one hand you have the artist who focuses more on artistic terms, expressing themselves through their music and producing content they think their fans will enjoy. Then you have the executives who are more concerned with promoting the work the artist has produced in a cost effective way, and making a return on this investment.
I won’t go into who’s right or wrong or who’s the protagonist or antagonist, as both parties have a case and in these types of music industry battles, the biggest victim is neither the artist nor label, but we the listeners.
We the listeners, anticipate an artist’s album being released but end up waiting months, sometimes years for the artist and label to come to a compromise. Chicago rapper Lupe Fiasco, only just settled a disagreement with his label, Atlantic Records, over his third album, Lasers. It was reported that his label repeatedly refused to release the project let alone set a release date. Fans of the rapper have been waiting for the release for more than a year and created an online petition to Atlantic Records as an attempt to push the label to release Lasers. After such outcry and a proposed protest outside of the record label's offices, it was finally agreed by the rapper and Atlantic Records that Lasers would be released in March 2011.
As of yet we don’t know the fate of Nas’ planned release, which was originally scheduled to be out in December. So until the Lost Tapes 2 is out I’ll just have to keep playing the Nas albums I already have.
*Reaches for stereo, turns up It Was Written and closes laptop*
