NaS co-wrote, "Men in Black, Chasing Forever, Just Crusing and Yes, Yes, Yall". He ghostwrote "Gettin Jiggy Wit It" which is why he wasn't on the credits to that song. Will was on Sony/Columbia just like NaS and as I said in my Source Awards post, Will fell off during the Gangsta Era cause nobody wanted to hear PG music.
So he went and got a Street Lyricist like NaS to help him with his rhymes which was hypocritical since he was dissing Hard Core Hip Hop at the time. But back then nobody really knew NaS worked on the album, it didn't really come out until a few years later even though you could read his name on some of the credits. Also NaS has done dumb down commercial tracks. It's just they never really blew up. It's a myth that NaS never went commercial lyrically cause he has.
"Oochie Wally" was clearly dumb down, there was nothing lyrical about that verse. The thing is NaS isn't really a "Commercial" emcee so though he's swam in those waters he never went to the deep end and stayed out there like most emcees. Big and Jay were more natural with the club records than NaS ever was. But Will owes a lot of the success of "Big Willie Style" to NaS. NaS lyrics helped keep a street element in a real Pop album. This song was hard:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WnzXaDFuNo
Oochie Wally is a posse cut and was on a compilation album b.

How the hell could u say an album that has tracks like I Gave You Power and Take It In Blood is dumbed down?..that is NOT the reason IWW got hate...ur wrong...IWW caught flack because people called it commercial...the nikka is even spittin on If I Ruled The World...dumbed down?...smh..u dont know what u even talkin bout g...if anything..his style was more polished and less raw...and alotta people liked that rawness of Illmatic as well...u nikkas dont even know how to hate Nas right..smh..
He wrote those? I don't know about Ride wit Me though. Being from St. Louis I know he recorded most of that album before anybody knew what a Nelly was. Hard to imagine Nas writing a verse for some nikka from St. Louis nobody ever heard of to that point.


