I always thought this was one of Nas most underrated tracks and has always been my favorite song on the album...I believe next to LL Cool J Nas probably has collaborated with the most singers of any rapper..some we know the story of how he worked with them because the hits were more mainstream but there have been the ones like Jully Black who we never knew how they linked up...
Anyway I decided to randomly search up the info and found an old interview of her explaining how this happened...
Jully Black Profile
What’s the most unexpected part of getting your deal?
I didn’t expect to become a product. You can’t do anything without permission. It’s like you’re a baby all over again.
I didn’t expect to meet Nas. When the Nas thing happened, other things happened that might not happen for new artists. I’m sort of going through a crash course on what artists might go through in 5 years, except it’s been 8 months. It’s a lot of pressure.
I didn’t expect how much pressure it would be. You’d think because I’ve been doing this in Canada for a long time – singing, writing, on the radio, Junos and MuchMusic Video Awards – but it’s like going from Grade 12 to University. There’s no training ground. It doesn’t matter if you’re on the honour roll in Grade 12, you might be getting 40% in University – that’s how it feels to be getting a record deal.
How did “the Nas thing” happen?
It’s a good thing I’m pretty bold and I don’t have much shame… just kidding. In the summer of 2002, I was recording a song called “Material Things” at Lou Pearlman’s Transcontinental Studios in Atlanta. Pearlman is the man behind Backstreet & N’Sync so it’s a nice studio, with a chef, dinning room, the whole thing. It was dinner time and there was Nas, sitting in the lunch room. The Producer and DJ that laid the track were hyperventilating, “Maybe we can get Nas on the track!?” After we ate, I went and introduced myself, “Hi, I’m Jully. I’m from Toronto. If you have time, I’d love you to come through and check out what I’m doing.” He said, “Yah, cool, cool.” That was it.
The 1st day went by – no Nas. The 2nd day went by – nothing. I’m thinking, “How’s this man gonna be in the next studio and not come listen?” (laughs) The 3rd day – I’m using the ladies room, when all of a sudden, there’s a “bang, bang” knock on the door and the producer is yelling, “Nas is in the studio! Nas is in the studio!” My A&R guy was tomato-red saying, “Okay, he’s in there. What are we going to do?” My A&R wanted me to play Nas the song I did for the “Brown Sugar” soundtrack. Instead, I went in and played all my foundation songs – the songs I did with Sauks. I played him 7 songs. Nas listened and said, “This shyt is hot.” He just thought it was so different from what was going on. He picked 2 songs “The Things You Do” and “Between You and Me” and said, “If you’ll be on my record, I’ll be on your record. Tomorrow, I’ll come and do my verses. Monday, I’ll fly Saukrates and Agile out to Long Island.” It was just boom, boom. He kept his word. Agile produced “The Things You Do” which Nas calls “Heaven” on his album.
Nas didn’t rush anything. He wanted a copy of the songs to live with before he spit his verses. He wanted to know what the song was about to me – that’s the biggest lesson I learned from him. You have to take time and believe in what the song is saying. For him to jump on a new artist’s song – when he could easily have said, “Tell your label to pay me $100,000 and I’ll spit 12 bars, peace out” – that was crazy. He just humbled himself.
@Ziggiy @Billy Ocean
He needs to perform songs like this and Street Dreams remix live more often, i think he is too obsessed with playing Illmatic tracks.
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. But yea I hate how people just down play Nas's catalog. And constantly compare it to Jay-Z when they're 2 completely different artists. Commercial bangers isn't Nas's forte. And introspective albums aren't Jay's lane besides 2 maybe 3 albums.
