Nas=Why I Write

I have a song that's gonna be on my EP called A Moment That Died. It's about a cat that used to rap then got bored with it once he found a good job and put it away. A spirit comes to him in a dream and convinces him that he needs to rap to "save the world" from the trash music that's popular and other various societal ills.

It's a cute idea, but I don't believe anything like that about myself. It's too arrogant, because it implies that the world depends on you. Granted, in my estimation, every artist who gives their art up for public consumption is arrogant to some degree. Imagine the audacity:

Hey I do this better than you, and all these other cats out here doing it. In fact, I'm soooo sure that I'm better that I believe you want to watch me do it. You probably would pay me money to see this, and would even pay me money for reproductions of my performances.

That's the arrogance that in my opinion every artist needs, to some extent. Rappers like me need it in spades. But to think that the world needs you, is arrogance of a different magnitude. You're saying that not only are you better, but that you're someone's savior. That's where I'd pump my brakes, my humility won't let me do that. But for one song I thought it'd be a fun idea to explore, what might give a person that level of hubris.

But for me, my motivation is to simply make the best music I can, and to be better than everyone else. Specifically Nas. Somehow he became the object of my motivation, my finish line in this race to greatness. It doesn't make sense because we rap differently, and I believe in terms of pure lyrical skill I'm already ahead of him by leaps and bounds. But early on, he was who I listened to for writing inspiration, and around the time of It Was Written, Phone Tap, and Nas Is Like he was the pinnacle of ill hip-hop in my young eyes.

So I rap to be better than him. Not often does it cross my conscious mind anymore, but he's still there motivating me. Not the Nas of today, who still makes good music despite falling the fuck off. I'm competing with the Nas of my childhood lol.

Slapboxing with ghosts...