When Nas was recording his feature for Scarface's 2002 The Fix track 'In Between Us' he was right in the middle of his legendary and legendarily vicious beef with JAY-Z.
So it's no surprise that he went at Hov hard in his bars. Too hard for Scarface, who was also going to have JAY-Z on The Fix.
As he explained on Drink Champs, he had to get Nas to dial it back.
“And Nas, the first verse he took, was some of the stuff he laid down on ‘Ether’, some of those lyrics,” Scarface explained. “‘I hope your wife cook your food with her period blood’ or something, you know.”
“He said that on ‘In Between Us’ and I was like, ‘Nah, Nas. We can’t go at cuz like that, you know. Not on here,’” Scarface continued. “Nas went at Jay on that record. I can’t remember everything that was said, but he fucking went off. And I was like we not going to do it like that. We just going to make some records man. He went back and did a whole other verse. It was clean.”
Fast-forward almost 20 years and JAY-Z and Nas are friends and both quite rich.