Jumping ahead five years to 2001, we arrive at the Nas album Stillmatic and the song ‘Ether,’ a take-down of our old friend Jay-Z.

Nas’s previous two albums had been poorly received, so Stillmatic was a comeback record, its title calling back to his celebrated debut. This track was a response to a cut on Jay-Z’s album The Blueprint in which he dismissed Nas as an also-ran.

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