On paper, a collab album between Nas and Kanye West should have been one of the great pairings in hip-hop history. The Queens legend’s gift for sharp, layered storytelling set against Kanye’s soulful, sample-driven production sounded like a natural fit. Yet when NASIR finally arrived in 2018, it left both fans and critics wanting more. Now, Nas has opened up about what really happened behind the scenes — and the answer is simpler and more frustrating than many expected. The Nas Kanye West NASIR album was, by his own account, a victim of timing and circumstance more than anything else.
What went wrong during the Wyoming sessions
In 2020, Nas sat down with Zane Lowe on Apple Music and recalled the recording sessions that took place in Wyoming. His account paints a picture of a process that was anything but focused or intimate. Kanye was simultaneously working on multiple albums at the same time, all of them scheduled to drop on consecutive Fridays. That left very little room for the kind of deep, unhurried collaboration that a project with Nas deserved.
As Nas described it, he spent much of the experience waiting. Kanye was juggling mixing sessions, finishing other records and managing a small army of producers and artists. Nas found himself on the sidelines. Only in the final week before NASIR was due to drop did the two really get into the room together to work seriously on the material. For an album that could have been a landmark, that timeline was simply not enough.
Nas still found something to appreciate
Despite the rushed process, Nas did not walk away bitter. He acknowledged the experience had its own kind of value. Wyoming was new territory for him. The energy around the sessions, with producers and artists all gathered in one place, carried a creative charge of its own. He was grateful for that part of it. Even so, he was clear that the album did not come together the way he had hoped. He had his own space on the side of the sessions. He worked when he could. However, the real time with Kanye came far too late in the process to produce the album they were both capable of making.
Why Nas still believes they could make magic
What makes the story genuinely interesting is that Nas has not closed the door on working with Kanye again. In a separate 2020 interview with The Breakfast Club, he reflected on the situation with clarity rather than resentment. He pointed out that he was the only artist coming into those Wyoming sessions starting completely fresh. Everyone else Kid Cudi, Teyana Taylor and Kanye himself had been deep in the process already. Nas was the newcomer, and that put him at a real disadvantage when it came to getting dedicated time with the producer.
In his view, the chemistry between them was never the problem. The potential was real. What was missing was simply time more sessions, more back-and-forth, more room to push the music somewhere genuinely special. He made clear he would welcome another shot at getting it right.
What NASIR represents in both artists’ careers
NASIR arrived during one of the more turbulent stretches in Kanye’s public life and career. The Wyoming batch of albums, which also included projects from Kid Cudi and Teyana Taylor, was an ambitious but uneven experiment. Critics acknowledged moments of brilliance across those records but widely agreed that the rushed rollout hurt the overall quality of each project, NASIR included.
For Nas, the album stands as a rare miss in a catalog that includes some of hip-hop’s most celebrated work. He came to Wyoming with strong intentions and real enthusiasm for the collaboration. The circumstances simply did not allow the project to breathe. Looking back, that gap between what NASIR could have been and what it actually became is the clearest way to understand why it still comes up in conversations about missed opportunities in modern hip-hop.
The good news, at least according to Nas, is that the story may not be finished yet.
Source: VICE
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