Still Illmatic!
The illmatic MC covers the June/July 2012 issue of Complex Magazine like a true don. Nas has an ill fashion swag because he’s the only artist that can rock 1980 fashions with 2012 trends and still look in style and fresh at the same time. Then again he was styled by the lovely June Ambrose and we all know she knows her fashion. Dressed in a white fedora hat along with a white tee and a button down gold shirt with african embedded prints and khaki shorts with timberland boots to match.
In the mag, Nas opens up for the very first time [more than his VH1 Behind The Scenes feature] about his romance and break-up with singer Kelis. It is clear that Nas has the upmost respect for his ex-wife/mother of his child and he admits that through the good and bad times of the relationship he cherished marriage and being married to Kelis.
Sidebar: Well, that’s one thing that whole world would agree with. Nas definitely loved Kelis. After-all he tatted Kelis [entire face] on his arm. Not many men would do such a thing! And now, any chick coming after that is clearly gonna have issue with that and or issue with kissing that arm at least.
Here’s a few excerpts of the interview below:
Nas gives aspiring artists some advice:
I tell aspiring artists: Say what you want to say, and speak what you really feel. If people don’t get it at first, or it seems too heavy for people, that’s just what it is.
I toned it down at times. I started to feel like a nerd when I was a young dude, and that wasn’t what I wanted to get across. I wanted to be relatable. And that was part of my mistake, because I toned it down a lot.
I say to the young: don’t. If you tone it down, still make it come off beautiful. Not everything I did came off beautiful. It came off as if I was trying to relate to people who don’t get me. In order to exist, I felt like I had to tone it down. So for a long time, I did.
There’s a record about Kelis on ‘Life Is Good’ that goes into what made you fall in love with her. How hard was that breakup? What was the feeling when she had your son after you were separated?
There was a point where we were trying to hold onto a relationship that was finished. She was pregnant and in the studio while we were recording Distant Relatives, and he would move when the music would come on. That was a great feeling for me, just to have that feeling of family. It ended around the time the record was being done.
There were times when it didn’t bother me, and there were times when it bothered me a lot. There were times when I was thinking, Damn. I had this shit all planned out, and now I’ve failed. That was hard on me, because I don’t like to fail at anything. Accepting that I failed at this relationship—and it was public—messed me up. You ask yourself,How could that person be so cold? And I’m sure she felt the same way about me. It was ugly.
After you say “I do,” everything changes. Yeah.
Did you see a problem immediately?
Yeah, but it was a problem I was attracted to. It was rock and roll. I saw Kelis as Courtney Love—but I also saw her as a mahogany queen. I saw us as a beautiful thing. I saw us as inspiration. People weren’t seeing hip-hop artists get married. A lot of people came at me crazy. But I think overall, we were inspiring people to love.
There was a lot that was thrown at her that she couldn’t handle. Like I was saying earlier, there’s a lot that I could tell my kids, but they’ve got to fish it out for themselves. Every night, she was in bed with Harvard. She was sleeping with Harvard. She had all the answers, but I needed something more from her, that she either wasn’t ready or didn’t know how to provide. Plus, she is younger than me and she hadn’t seen all the things I had seen. She was on her journey, I was on mine. In the beginning, I said, “There’s parts of this that might not work,” but there was a beautiful part of it, too. For the most part, I had a great time being married. It was amazing. She’s an amazing woman!
Head over to Complex Mag to read the full article. Bonus Clip: Check out Behind the scenes footage