Dear Nas fans

Can you please stop forcing me to wade through your cavalcade of "YO, DOOK NEEDS TO WORK WITH NAS AGAIN!!!" comments on AZ's Youtube videos when I'm perusing his Doe Or Die 2010 remix project songs on there to see if any fruitflies happen to agree with my stance that it's a pointless endeavour to fritter away perfectly good production on a song like the remix of Gimme Yours below when you'll only ever listen to it a handful of times before returning to the original you've been bumping for 15 years and forgetting the new remix even exist by next week, yeah?

AZ ft Josh Xantus - Gimme Yours 2010 remix



While I wouldn't go quite as far as suggesting Nas's career without AZ is tantamount to Arsene Wenger's tenure at Arsenal minus the guiding hand of David Dein, I'd ask you to consider the amount of good songs AZ has made since he and Nas went their seperate ways after Serious (a bunch) and then consider how many Nas has made (literally about 3). If you still remain unconvinced that it's Nas who should be hollaring at AZ for assistance and not vice versa, then marinate on the incontrovertible evidence that the only 3 Nas solo albums which are honestly worth owning (not counting a compilation like Lost Tapes) are the 3 which AZ appears on, because the rest of them shits (including God's Son, which is utterly inessential bar the 3 main singles) are straight up weaker than a post-2006 Arsenal player's legs, concentration, and positioning.

Besides, it's not like AZ hasn't found a consummate new rap counterpart in Styles P if both parts of The Hardest were anything to go by, and he's probably better off shining on songs with his other former Firm affiliates like Cormega and Foxy Brown than he is playing second-fiddle in billing to Nas again, especially if the tin-eared oaf from Q.B picks the beats.

AZ ft. Styles P - The Hardest video mix



This is what regal old-man NY rap which is still pretty damn trife should sound like, and if we can't get any future collaborations between these 2 gentlemen then someone needs to make a semi-follow up to AZ's Memphis Sessions where they blend a grip of great AZ and Styles P acapella verses which were used on songs with terrible production over Large Pro's The Hardest instrumental 11 times and then put the results in a rar file or even on a cd.

AZ & Cormega - No Holding Back



Taken from Statik Selektah's first compilation and easily the best song on there because it featured two rappers with previous form together rather than a ridiculously unlikely pairing like Styles P & Kweli or the immediately nullifying presence of a Termanology verse. I'm quite partial to Statik Selektah beats if they find decent recipients (AZ's Animal, that All 2gether Now State Property track, and the Foxy & AZ jam coming next are all quite brilliant) but did his latest song for AZ really have to be so fleeting in length? Guess it's karma biting me on the arse for complaining about KanYe's G.O.O.D Friday posse cuts being so long-winded.

Foxy Brown ft. AZ - Too Real



Gotta confess that female rappers rank a notch below cracka-rappers in my affections because I look at rap as a musical agnate of professional wrestling, where it's just an elaborately staged excuse for us men to purge ourselves of all our egotistical macho fantasy bullshit in the least messy but most entertaining way possible. Thus, I generally find femme fatale rappers like Foxy talkin' tough and bragging about their dastardly shenanigans as cringeworthy as Luna Vachon gurning and "lemme tell ya sumthin', Mean Gene"-ing her way through an old shoot in the WWF. However, there are those songs like this one which even a sexist pig such as myself can't deny and when AZ comes in on the second verse with a role reversal of Fan Mail then I'm sold.