Nas Net Worth
Nas is a rapper, songwriter, and entrepreneur. He has a net worth of $85 million. Nas became the first rapper to have a personal verified account on Rap Genius where he explains all his own lyrics and commenting on the lyrics of other rappers he admires.
Bio And Wiki
Nas is an American rapper, songwriter, and entrepreneur. Rooted in the New York hip hop scene, he is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential rappers of all time. Nas has released twelve studio albums since 1994, seven of which are certified platinum and multi-platinum in the U.S.
The son of jazz musician Olu Dara, Jones's musical career began in 1989 as he adopted the moniker of "Nasty Nas" and recorded demos for Large Professor.
He was a featured artist on Main Source's "Live at the Barbeque" (1991), also produced by Large Professor. Nas's debut album Illmatic (1994) received universal acclaim upon release, and is considered to be one of the greatest hip hop albums of all-time; in 2021, the album was inducted into the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry.
His second album It Was Written (1996) debuted atop the Billboard 200 and charted for four consecutive weeks; the album, along with its single "If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)" (featuring Lauryn Hill), catapulted Nas into international success.
Nas's albums I Am (1998) and Nastradamus (1999) were criticized as inconsistent and too commercially oriented, and critics and fans feared that his output was declining in quality.
From 2001 to 2005, Nas was involved in a highly publicized feud with Jay-Z, popularized by the diss track "Ether". It was this feud, along with Nas's albums Stillmatic (2001), God's Son (2002), and the double album Street's Disciple (2004), that helped restore his critical standing.
After quashing the feud, Nas signed to Jay-Z's Def Jam Recordings in 2006 and went in a more provocative, politicized direction with the albums Hip Hop Is Dead (2006) and his untitled 9th studio album (2008).
In 2010, Nas released Distant Relatives, a collaboration album with Damian Marley, donating all royalties to charities active in Africa. His 11th studio album, Life Is Good (2012), was nominated for Best Rap Album at the 55th Annual Grammy Awards. After receiving thirteen nominations, his 13th studio album, King's Disease (2020), won him his first Grammy for Best Rap Album at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards.
In 2006, MTV ranked Nas fifth on their list of "The Greatest MCs of All Time". In 2012, The Source ranked him second on their list of the "Top 50 Lyricists of All Time". In 2013, Nas was ranked 4th on MTV's "Hottest MCs in the Game" list.
Ranked him first on their list of the "50 Greatest MCs of All Time" in 2014, and a year later, Nas was featured on the "10 Best Rappers of All Time" list by Billboard. He is also an entrepreneur through his own record label; he serves as associate publisher of Mass Appeal magazine and the co-founder of Mass Appeal Records.
Biography
Real Name:- Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones
NickName:- Nas
Birthplaces:- New York
Nationality:- United States
Profession:- Rapper
Birthdate:- 1973
Family
Mother name:- Fannie Ann Jones
Father name:- Olu Dara
Brother name:- Jungle
Sister name:- Don't know
Married Status:- Divorced
Children
Destiny Jones
Knight Jones
Girlfriends, Affairs & More
Girlfriends:- Not know
Affairs:- Update Soon
Married Status:- Divorced
Early Life
Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones was born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City on September 14, 1973 to African American parents. His father, Olu Dara is a jazz and blues musician from Mississippi. His mother, Fannie Ann was a U.S. Postal Service worker from North Carolina.
He has a brother, Jabari Fret, who raps under the name Jungle and is a member of hip hop group Bravehearts. His father adopted the name "Olu Dara" from the Yoruba people. "Nasir" is an Arabic name meaning "helper and protector", while "bin" means "son of" in Arabic.
As a young child, Nas and his family relocated to the Queensbridge Houses in the borough of Queens. His neighbor, Willy "Ill Will" Graham, influenced his interest in hip hop by playing him records.
His parents divorced in 1985, and he dropped out of school after the eighth grade.
He educated himself about African culture through the Five Percent Nation and the Nuwaubian Nation. In his early years, he played the trumpet and began writing his own rhymes.
Personal Life
Nas is a spokesperson and mentor for P'Tones Records, a non-profit after school music program with the mission "to create constructive opportunities for urban youth through no-cost music programs."
He is a cousin of American actress Yara Shahidi.
On June 15, 1994, Nas's ex-fiancée Carmen Bryan gave birth to their daughter, Destiny. She later confessed to Nas that she had a relationship with his then-rival rapper and nemesis Jay-Z, also accusing Jay-Z of putting subliminal messages in his lyrics about their relationship together, causing an even bigger rift in the feud between the two men.
Nas also briefly dated Mary J. Blige and Nicki Minaj respectively. In 2005, Nas married R&B singer Kelis in Atlanta after a two-year relationship. On April 30, 2009, a spokesperson confirmed that Kelis filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences.
Kelis gave birth to Nas's first son on July 21, 2009, although the event was soured by a disagreement which ended in Nas announcing the birth of his son, Knight, at a gig in Queens, NY, against Kelis's wishes. The birth was also announced by Nas via an online video. The couple's divorce was finalized on May 21, 2010.
In 2018, Kelis accused Nas of being physically and mentally abusive during their marriage. Nas replied to the accusations on social media, accusing Kelis of attempting to slander Nas in the time of a custody battle and accusing Kelis of abusing his daughter, Destiny.
In January 2012 Nas was involved in a dispute with a concert promoter in Angola, having accepted $300,000 for a concert in Luanda, Angola's capital for New Year's Eve and then not showing up. American promoter Patrick Allocco and his son, who arranged for Nas's concert, were detained at gunpoint and taken to an Angolan jail by the local promoter who fronted the $300,000 for the concert.
Only after the U.S. Embassy intervened were the promoter and his son allowed to leave jail—but were placed under house arrest at their hotel. As of the end of the month Nas returned all $300,000 and after 49 days of travel ban Allocco and his son were both released.
On March 15, 2012, Nas became the first rapper to have a personal verified account on Rap Genius where he explains all his own lyrics and commenting on the lyrics of other rappers he admires.
In September 2009 the U.S. Internal Revenue Service filed a federal tax lien against Nas for over $2.5 million, seeking unpaid taxes dating back to 2006. By early 2011 this figure had ballooned to over $6.4 million. Early in 2012 reports emerged that the IRS had filed papers in Georgia to garnish a portion of Nas's earnings from material published under BMI and ASCAP, until his delinquent tax bill is settled.
In May 2013, it was announced that Nas would open a sneaker store in Las Vegas called 12 am RUN as part of The LINQ retail development.
In July 2013, he was honored by Harvard University, as the institution established the Nasir Jones Hip-Hop Fellowship, which would serve to fund scholars and artists who show potential and creativity in the arts in connection to hip hop.
In an October 2014 episode of PBS's Finding Your Roots, Nas learned about five generations of his ancestry. His great-great-great-grandmother, Pocahontas Little, was a slave who was sold for $830. When host Henry Louis Gates showed Nas her bill of sale and told him more about the man who bought her, Nas remarked that he is considering buying the land where the slave owner lived.
Nas is also shown the marriage certificate of his great-great-great-grandmother, Pocahontas, and great-great-great-grandfather, Calvin.
Nas is a fan of his hometown baseball team the New York Mets and English soccer team Everton FC.
Career
As a teenager, Nas enlisted his best friend and upstairs neighbor Willy "Ill Will" Graham as his DJ. Nas initially went by the nickname "Kid Wave" before adopting his more commonly known alias of "Nasty Nas".
In 1989, then-16-year-old Nas met up with producer Large Professor and went to the studio where Rakim and Kool G Rap were recording their albums. When they were not in the recording studio, Nas would go into the booth and record his own material. However, none of it was ever released.
In 1991, Nas performed on Main Source's "Live at the Barbeque", also produced by Large Professor. In mid-1992, Nas was approached by MC Serch of 3rd Bass, who became his manager and secured Nas a record deal with Columbia Records during the same year.
Nas made his solo debut under the name of "Nasty Nas" on the single "Halftime" from MC Serch's soundtrack for the film Zebrahead. Called the new Rakim, his rhyming skills attracted a significant amount of attention within the hip hop community.
In 1994, Nas's debut album, Illmatic, was released. It featured production from Large Professor, Pete Rock, Q-Tip, LES and DJ Premier, as well as guest appearances from Nas's friend AZ and his father Olu Dara. The album spawned several singles, including "The World Is Yours", "It Ain't Hard to Tell", and "One Love". Shaheem Reid of MTV News called Illmatic "the first classic LP" of 1994.
In 1994, Nas also recorded the song "One on One" for the soundtrack to the film Street Fighter. In his book To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic, William Jelani Cobb writes of Nas's impact at the time.
Illmatic was awarded best album of 1994 by The Source. Steve Huey of AllMusic described Nas's lyrics on Illmatic as "highly literate" and his raps "superbly fluid regardless of the size of his vocabulary", adding that Nas is "able to evoke the bleak reality of ghetto life without losing hope or forgetting the good times".
He ranked Illmatic as the greatest hip hop album of all-time, and Prefix magazine praised it as "the best hip hop record ever made".
In 1995, Nas did guest performances on the albums Doe or Die by AZ, The Infamous by The Infamous Mobb Deep, Only Built 4 Cuban Linx by Raekwon and 4,5,6 by Kool G Rap. Nas also parted ways with manager MC Serch, enlisted Steve Stoute, and began preparation for his second album, It Was Written. The album was chiefly produced by Tone and Poke of the Trackmasters, as Nas consciously worked towards a crossover-oriented sound.
Columbia Records had begun to pressure Nas to work towards more commercial topics, such as that of The Notorious B.I.G., who had become successful by releasing street singles that still retained radio-friendly appeal. The album also expanded on Nas's Escobar persona, who lived a Scarface/Casino-esque lifestyle. On the other hand, references to Scarface protagonist Tony Montana notwithstanding, Illmatic was more about his early life growing up in the projects.
It Was Written was released in mid-1996. Two singles, "If I Ruled the World and "Street Dreams" were instant hits. These songs were promoted by big-budget music videos directed by Hype Williams, making Nas a common name among mainstream hip-hop. Reviewing It Was Written, Leo Stanley of Allmusic believed the album's rhymes were not as complex as those of Illmatic, but still thought Nas had "deepened his talents, creating a complex series of rhymes that not only flow, but manage to tell coherent stories as well." It Was Written featured the debut of the Firm, a supergroup consisting of Nas, AZ, Foxy Brown, and Cormega.
Signed to Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment label, the Firm began working on their debut album. Halfway through the production of the album, Cormega was fired from the group by Steve Stoute, who had unsuccessfully attempted to force Cormega to sign a deal with his management company.
Cormega subsequently became one of Nas's most vocal opponents and released a number of underground hip hop singles "dissing" Nas, Stoute, and Nature, who replaced Cormega as the fourth member of the Firm. Nas, Foxy Brown, AZ, and Nature Present The Firm: The Album was finally released in 1997 to mixed reviews.
The album failed to live up to its expected sales, despite being certified platinum, and the members of the group disbanded to go their separate ways. During this period, Nas was also one of four rappers in the hip-hop supergroup Group Therapy, who appeared on the song "East Coast/West Coast Killas" from Dr. Dre Presents the Aftermath.
In late 1998, Nas began working on a double album, to be entitled I Am The Autobiography; he intended it as the middle ground between Illmatic and It Was Written, with each track detailing a part of his life. In 1998, Nas co-wrote and starred in Hype Williams's feature film Belly. I Am... The Autobiography was completed in early 1999, and a music video was shot for its lead single, "Nas Is Like".
It was produced by DJ Premier and contained vocal samples from "It Ain't Hard to Tell". Music critic M.F. DiBella noticed that Nas also covered "politics, the state of hip-hop, Y2K, race, and religion with his own unique perspective" in the album besides autobiographical lyrics. Much of the LP was leaked into MP3 format onto the Internet, and Nas and Stoute quickly recorded enough substitute material to constitute a single-disc release.
The second single on I Am... was "Hate Me Now", featuring Sean "Puffy" Combs, which was used as an example by Nas's critics accusing him of moving towards more commercial themes. The video featured Nas and Combs being crucified in a manner similar to Jesus Christ; after the video was completed, Combs requested his crucifixion scene be edited out of the video. However, the unedited copy of the "Hate Me Now" video made its way to MTV.
Within minutes of the broadcast, Combs and his bodyguards allegedly made their way into Steve Stoute's office and assaulted him, at one point apparently hitting Stoute over the head with a champagne bottle. Stoute pressed charges, but he and Combs settled out-of-court that June.
Columbia had scheduled to release the infringed material from I Am... under the title Nastradamus during the later half of 1999, but, at the last minute, Nas decided to record an entire new album for the 1999 release of Nastradamus.
Nastradamus was therefore rushed to meet a November release date. Though critical reviews were unfavorable, it did result in a minor hit, "You Owe Me". Fans and critics feared that Nas's career was declining, artistically and commercially, as both I Am... and Nastradamus were criticized as inconsistent and overtly-commercialized.
In 2000, Nas & Ill Will Records Presents QB's Finest, which is popularly known as simply QB's Finest, was released on Nas's Ill Will Records. QB's Finest is a compilation album that featured Nas and a number of other rappers from Queensbridge projects, including Mobb Deep, Nature, Capone, the Bravehearts, Tragedy Khadafi, Millennium Thug and Cormega, who had briefly reconciled with Nas.
The album also featured guest appearances from Queensbridge hip-hop legends Roxanne Shanté, MC Shan, and Marley Marl. Shan and Marley Marl both appeared on the lead single "Da Bridge 2001", which was based on Shan & Marl's 1986 recording "The Bridge".
In April 2018, Kanye West announced on Twitter that Nas's twelfth studio album will be released on June 15, also serving as executive producer for the album. The album was announced the day before release, titled Nasir, after Nas's first name.
Following the release of Nasir, Nas confirmed he would return to completing a previous album, including production from Swizz Beatz and RZA. This project was released as The Lost Tapes 2 on July 19, 2019, which included production from Kanye West, Pharrell Williams, Swizz Beatz, The Alchemist, and RZA. This album was a sequel to Nas's 2002 release, The Lost Tapes.
In August 2020, Nas announced that he would be releasing his 13th album the same month. On August 13, he revealed the album's title, King's Disease. The album, executive-produced by Hit-Boy, was preceded by the lead single, "Ultra Black", a song detailing perseverance and pride "despite the system". A second installment was released in August 2021.
Business Ventures
On April 10, 2013, Nas invested an undisclosed six-figure sum into Mass Appeal Magazine, where he went on to serve as the publication's associate publisher, joined by creative firm Decon and White Owl Capital Partners. In June 2013, he opened his own sneaker store.
In September 2013, he invested in a technology startup company, a job search appmaker called Proven. In 2014, Nas invested as part of a $2.8M round in viral video startup ViralGains another addition to Queens-bridge venture partners portfolio.
Nas has a partnership with Hennessy and has been working with their "Wild Rabbit" campaign.
In May 2014, Nas partnered with job placement startup Koru to fund a scholarship for 10 college graduates to go through Koru's training program. Nas also will be joining the startup as a guest coach. Nas is a co-owner of a Cloud-based service LANDR, an automated, drag-and-drop digital audio postproduction tool which automates "mastering", the final stage in audio production.
In June 2015, Nas joined forces with New York City soul food restaurant Sweet Chick. He plans to expand the restaurant brand nationally. The Los Angeles location opened in April 2017. He owns his own clothing line called HSTRY.
In June 2018, Nas was paid $40 million after Amazon acquired the doorbell company Ring Inc. as well as PillPack - the latter of which he invested in via his investment firm, Queensbridge Venture Partners.
He has continued to invest heavily in technology startups including Dropbox, Lyft, and Robinhood.
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