Hit-Boy

Nas And ASAP Rocky Play Many Characters In Their New York-Lauding ‘Wave Gods’ Video

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Just before the end of 2021, Nas and Hit-Boy — who have become quite the dynamic duo lately — surprised fans with their latest collaborative project, Magic. The album was a welcome inclusion to the rap partnership’s growing catalog of collaborative projects, which already included King’s Disease and King’s Disease II. One of the benefits for Nas of working with Hit-Boy was the inclusion of younger voices to Nas’ list of collaborations, which helped to reverse the narrative the rap vet was out-of-touch with contemporary hip-hop.

One of the voices included on Magic is that of ASAP Rocky, who appears on the Max B shout-out track “Wave Gods” along with a thrilling turntable performance from DJ Premier. Today, Nas and Rocky released the song’s video, a love letter to the gritty New York streets from which both men hail. Rather than showing off tourist destinations like Times Square, though, they display the New York they know, from housing projects to crowded subway cars, as both Nas and Rocky portray a variety of characters from the dice rolling residents of the high-rises to the homeless vagrants who populate bus stop benches.

Watch Nas and Hit-Boy’s “Wave Gods” video featuring ASAP Rocky and DJ Premier above.

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Nas And Hit-Boy Confirm That ‘King’s Disease III’ Is On The Way

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For the third time in sixteen months, Nas and Hit-Boy joined forces to deliver a new project to the world. Their latest effort is titled Magic and it comes four months after the duo came together for King’s Disease II. Magic presents nine songs with features from ASAP Rocky and DJ Premier. A highlight moment on the project comes on “Ugly” when Nas uses the Hit-Boy produced beat to share some news. “I’m on offense every day until I see the love,” he raps on the song’s first verse. “KD3 on the way, this just to feed the buzz.”

KD3 is of course an abbreviation for King’s Disease III, which would be the third installment in Nas and Hit-Boy’s album series that they began in August 2020. The first installment gave Nas his long-awaited Grammy award as the project won in the Best Rap Album category earlier this year. It’s not the first time that Nas has spoken about the possibility of a King’s Disease III. He previously did so during an interview with Apple Music’s Ebro Darden earlier this year.

“He’s like my Quincy [Jones], you know what I mean?” Nas said. “So I feel like the next thing I do, if I was to work with Hit-Boy on the next thing I do, I think that we might do something that is going to be magical.”

You can listen to “Ugly” in the video above.

Magic is out now via Mass Appeal. Get it here.