Since his 1994 masterpiece Illmatic, Nas has amassed one of the largest catalogues of unreleased material of any elite emcee. Those who are anxious to hear more of those vaulted works will soon have the chance, as Nas has verified plans to release Lost Tapes Volume Two.
Nas made a short announcement today via Twitter, just one day after celebrating his 37th birthday.
The original installment was a low-key complication project sandwiched between Stillmatic and God’s Son. The material itself ranged from Nas’ canceled I Am double album to his Stillmatic sessions. Even without much advertisement or creative input from Nas himself (Nasir left it to A&R Len Nicholson to pick the songs), the collection still landed in Billboard’s Top 10. With multiple production credits from L.E.S. and Alchemist, fans and critics hailed the offering as vintage Nas for its poetic mix of introspection (“Doo Rags,” “Purple”), street tales (“Blaze a 50”) and social commentary (“Black Zombies”).
At press time, Nas has not revealed how closely he will be involved in the creative direction of this sequel. Nas is also working on his 10th solo album, which both Kanye West and the RZA have expressed interest in executive-producing.
*UPDATE*
According to Shaheem Reid of MTV News, Lost Tapes Volume Two has a release date of December 11.
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This is wonderful news for Nas fans. The first Lost Tapes was great and contrasted well to the production styles and lyrical approaches he took on Stillmatic and God’s Son. The question for this one will be which era will they pull from for the material?
Personally, I don’t think they can go wrong no matter where they go. For example, from Street’s Disciple era Nas you have joints that amazingly didn’t make the album like the AZ-assisted “Serious,” and the original, Billy Joel “Stilletto” sampling “Disciple.” From the Hip-Hop Is Dead era, “Where Y’all At” comes to mind. I can’t recall offhand what period “Talk of New York” is from, but that was heat, too. Basically, from any period Nas appears to have made and promptly discarded street joints that remind listeners how he got the nickname Nasty Nas.
In fact, I think Nas would do well to drop this before his new album. Add a new track (how about the “Empire State of Mind Remix” that was supposed to happen with Jay-Z?) and it builds nice anticipation for the next true Nas solo.
With this latest development and listening to the “Power, Paper and Pussy” freestyle, it’s safe to say Escobar season has returned.
Beats, Boxing and Mayhem 
Good news indeed. I’ve come to grips witjh the fact that we’ll probably never get another proper Nas album of cuts like that. No matter, I’ll take it how I can get it.