Jim Jones makes his case after a 22-year-old college student from New Jersey said he was influenced more by the Harlem rapper than by Nas on the Don’t Quote Me podcast.
While stopping by the Joe and Jada podcast posted Thursday (June 19), Jimmy discussed the viral video. “I admired Nas,” Jones admitted. “When it came to dressin’, the wordplay, the music, everything. I was a superior Nas fan, period. I’ll never take that away from him.”
However, once Jones became a professional rapper and found himself on the frontlines of the Jay-Z and Nas beef when the Diplomats were signed to Roc-A-Fella during the early 2000s, the rapper he once looked up to became an adversary. “But then, as I got in the game, you gotta realize, your idols become rivals,” he said, “Not to take away anything from that. I developed my own style and my own lane that these kids started to gravitate towards to, the same way I gravitated towards Nas when I younger.”
Jadakiss pushed back a bit on that claim, though, and said his son is around the same age and is aware of Nas’ impact on the genre, but Jim brushed it off, attributing it to him being around Jada. “He’s your son,” he retorted. “My son can’t tell you one Nas record. Let’s keep it a buck here. There must be some type of misconception when it comes to Jim Jones and what Jim Jones has done in this game. A lot of these rappers have done a tremendous job. And I take nothing away from them. But they forget, I got a helluva catalog. Gold records, platinum records. Gold albums, platinum albums … Check my track record. Then check everybody else track record.”
“I’m not taking anything away from nobody,” Jones adds. “But I hear the comparisons. N—as be trying to act funny. No, I been spanking a lot of this s–t. I’m talking about the industry. I been putting on … If you want to go to the Billboard entries, pull up Nas’ Billboard entries and pull up my Billboard entries.”
For the record, Jim Jones has two songs (“We Fly High” and “Pop Champagne”) in his catalog that have hit the Billboard Hot 100 with one top 10 hit and no No. 1s. Nas, on the other hand, has 27 songs that reached the Hot 100 with two top 10 hits while also having no No. 1s.
When it comes to albums, Jim has nine entried in the Billboard 200 with three top 10 albums and no No. 1s, while Nas has 27 entries, 16 top 10 albums, and six that have reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200.
You can watch the full episode below.
