Albums Nas & DJ Premier - Light-Years (Discussion Thread)

[Piff Perkins]

The Coli is obsessed with sales figures though, got to stay on point. Always been comedy that the dudes most obsessed with sales on here have the lowest understanding of how it works. Like sales happen in a vacuum based on quality, nothing to do with labels buying ready made hits for priority artists on 360 deals, spending big on promo then sending em on the road for years to recoup.

All sales figures in 2025 are fake. And this is a 52 year old rapper with a 59 year old producer making an album that sound intentionally dated with no commercial appeal. Minimal promo on an independent label. Imagine being invested in the sales figures

It's not that sales numbers are fake now. It's that they gauge something quite different from the physical media era. They gauge consumption. How many times are people listening to this song, and are they paying to listen (subscription). That business model does not benefit older artists like Nas, who have fanbases that don't stream music like that. Which is why you see first week numbers from old rock bands where they sell 60k first week and only 10k is streaming. And as others have said, Nas being independent makes it much harder to get his physicals shipped on time for 1st week reporting.

Do I think 5k would be a disaster? Yes. That's a fair assessment IMO. But at the end of the day when Nas did 56k with KD2 he got clowned by the same clowns who are prematurely clowning 5k. So the haters gonna hate regardless at the end of the day. And even as someone who isn't a fan of the album I'll push back on the "people listened once and moved on" crowd because those types of people predominantly aren't streaming a Nas album in the first place. That's how younger fans operate...hence the 21 Savage sales number. My general opinion? I don't think a lot of fans knew the album came out. Not fans as in Coli Nas soldiers who know about every Instagram post seconds after it goes up. Regular dudes with jobs and families who need a music single or movie/tv trailer to know when something is coming.

 

[spliz]

Not real like it’s not the actual sales estimate?

It's not. Some Drake fan account made it up.

 

[FlyGuy]

People been in the cut like Piccolo waiting to hate on this shyt

 

[2ATMsYouSteppinOrWhat]

Bro. That 5K number isn’t real. lol.

And if it was real then so what right? Lol

 

[Ziggiy]

Nas takes a victory lap in ‘Light-Years’

Across 15 songs, Nas appears to be lapping the finish line, and it’s anybody’s guess where he’s going to go from here.

www.dailycal.org

 

[L $ C]

good album but a lot of my fears about this album a month ago came true

1. little to no promotion
2. no single
3. no video
4. no interviews almost
5. weak beats overall COMPARED to what was expected

it hurts my heart to type that shyt because nas is by far the greatest to ever do it AND there is classic songs on here, but overall spec after the mobb and da la projects...this was fumbled a bit

 

[L $ C]

this rollout was horrible, and yall can admit that or not ....the snippit was the worst song on album, no video no promo

 

[Mike Wins]

It's not that sales numbers are fake now. It's that they gauge something quite different from the physical media era. They gauge consumption. How many times are people listening to this song, and are they paying to listen (subscription). That business model does not benefit older artists like Nas, who have fanbases that don't stream music like that. Which is why you see first week numbers from old rock bands where they sell 60k first week and only 10k is streaming. And as others have said, Nas being independent makes it much harder to get his physicals shipped on time for 1st week reporting.

Do I think 5k would be a disaster? Yes. That's a fair assessment IMO. But at the end of the day when Nas did 56k with KD2 he got clowned by the same clowns who are prematurely clowning 5k. So the haters gonna hate regardless at the end of the day. And even as someone who isn't a fan of the album I'll push back on the "people listened once and moved on" crowd because those types of people predominantly aren't streaming a Nas album in the first place. That's how younger fans operate...hence the 21 Savage sales number. My general opinion? I don't think a lot of fans knew the album came out. Not fans as in Coli Nas soldiers who know about every Instagram post seconds after it goes up. Regular dudes with jobs and families who need a music single or movie/tv trailer to know when something is coming.

By fake I'm talking about how streams are bought and manipulated by big labels and calculated by a constantly changing set of rules that don't make sense half the time. Now they gonna stop counting Youtube numbers and change how many streams equal a sale. The numbers don't really mean anything compared to any prior era.

I know labels used to juke stats in the Soundscan era too but the concept was straightforward. The fan obsession with sales that started in the early 00s was annoying then too but at least a sale was a sale, same in 2003 as it was in 1993. A "sale" in 2025 ain't the same as 2022, 2019 or 2016.

 

[Ziggiy]

good album but a lot of my fears about this album a month ago came true

1. little to no promotion
2. no single
3. no video
4. no interviews almost
5. weak beats overall COMPARED to what was expected

it hurts my heart to type that shyt because nas is by far the greatest to ever do it AND there is classic songs on here, but overall spec after the mobb and da la projects...this was fumbled a bit

He did one print interview and one podcast interview. For Nas thats the equivalent of getting Muhammad to enjoy a ham sandwhich.

He performed a televised (or streamed) concert sponsored by Amazon, which was heavily promoted during the NBA Cup semifinal. He did two songs from the new album and promoted the album throughout the show.

He and the Mass Appeal team had the presence of mind to make sure the physicals shipped the week of release, which hadn’t happened for ANY of his releases outside of the first Kings Disease.


Your personal opinion of the album’s quality aside, he did “enough” for Hip Hop heads and fans to have an awareness the album was coming. Hell he announced it to his 6.8 MILLION followers on IG two weeks beforehand, and had the preorders ready that day.

 

[Izanami]

Had this album opened up with Madman, the discourse around it would be TOTALLY different IMO. Sequencing matters.

Madman, It’s Time, or even Shine Together would’ve been better intros. This album suffers from such an awkward slow start. Not bad but not great either. And that’s why it’s bit frustrating. I feel like the first 3 tracks on the album gotta be stellar

 

[Izanami]

I think out of the last 5 years of releases, Magic maybe my favorite release which ironically, if I’m not mistaken, came out during this same time

Magic was catching lightning in a bottle. I wished Preem heard that and got real motivated to match its sound quality. It’s really a shame.

 

[L $ C]

He did one print interview and one podcast interview. For Nas thats the equivalent of getting Muhammad to enjoy a ham sandwhich.

He performed a televised (or streamed) concert sponsored by Amazon, which was heavily promoted during the NBA Cup semifinal. He did two songs from the new album and promoted the album throughout the show.

He and the Mass Appeal team had the presence of mind to make sure the physicals shipped the week of release, which hadn’t happened for ANY of his releases outside of the first Kings Disease.


Your personal opinion of the album’s quality aside, he did “enough” for Hip Hop heads and fans to have an awareness the album was coming. Hell he announced it to his 6.8 MILLION followers on IG two weeks beforehand, and had the preorders ready that day.

Bro come on, that’s all I gotta say. Come on dog


An IG post ? Yes bro that should be a minimum of 10 things. He did



1 interview on JBP and one thing on Amazon doesn’t do it justice at all. One bad snipit no video no breakfast club no nothing else. This was mishandled. Bro u know nas my guy come on. Mobb de la ghost all had 3x better promo

 

[mson]

He did one print interview and one podcast interview. For Nas thats the equivalent of getting Muhammad to enjoy a ham sandwhich.

He performed a televised (or streamed) concert sponsored by Amazon, which was heavily promoted during the NBA Cup semifinal. He did two songs from the new album and promoted the album throughout the show.

He and the Mass Appeal team had the presence of mind to make sure the physicals shipped the week of release, which hadn’t happened for ANY of his releases outside of the first Kings Disease.


Your personal opinion of the album’s quality aside, he did “enough” for Hip Hop heads and fans to have an awareness the album was coming. Hell he announced it to his 6.8 MILLION followers on IG two weeks beforehand, and had the preorders ready that day.

He could’ve done way more. You can’t even compare it with any of the rollouts on Mass Appeal. But Nas doesn't care, so I don't care.

 

[ArchStanton]

You do know the other albums didn't have those features and sold more tho right ... whats your excuse for that ?

The sales haven't even been confirmed yet.

 

[InstantKlassik]

Yall so fukn dumb. This thread should be locked. Dudes talking in circles in here the past few days.