Artist/Group: Nas
Album: Stillmatic
Released: 2001
Label: Ill Will/Columbia
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“Ether” is a diss song by hip hop recording artist Nas, from his 2001 album Stillmatic. The song was a response to Jay-Z’s “Takeover”, a diss track directed towards Nas and Prodigy.
Nas named the song “Ether” stating, “I was told a long time ago, ghosts and spirits don’t like the fumes from ether, and I just wanted to affect him with my weapon and get to his soul.” “Ether” has been called a “classic” diss track and the “wildest” in hip hop history by music publications.
Jay-Z dismissed Nas as a has-been on the diss track “Takeover”. Nas responds to Jay’s claims by rapping, “I got this, locked since Nine-One (1991), I am the truest/ Name a rapper that I ain’t influenced.” The song contains numerous slurs directed at Jay-Z: “When these streets keep calling, heard it when I was asleep/ That this Gay-Z and Cock-A-Fella Records wanted beef”, “Then you got the nerve to say that you’re better than Big/ Dick-suckin’ lips, why don’t you let the late great veteran live”, “You a dick-ridin’ faggot, you love the attention/ Queens niggas run you niggas, ask Russell Simmons” and “Put it together/ I rock hos; y’all rock fellas.”
Nas also attacks Jay-Z’s street cred, claiming, “In ’88, you was gettin’ chased to your buildin’/ Callin’ my crib, and I ain’t even give you my numbers/ All I did was give you a style for you to run with.” He also accuses Jay of selling out, “Y’all niggas deal with emotions like bitches/ What’s sad is I love you cause you’re my brother, you traded your soul for riches.” Nas also criticized him for copying KRS-One ideas on the name of Jay-Z’s current album at the time, The Blueprint, which was quite similar to the Boogie-Down Production’s album, Ghetto Music: The Blueprint of Hip Hop, with the line “KRS already made an album called Blueprint.” He had lines calling Jay unattractive and accusing him of misogyny, as well as having an affair with Foxy Brown in the late 1990s (which she would confirm years later in her track “Let em Know”) rapping, “You seem to be only concerned with dissin’ women/ Were you abused as a child, scared to smile, they called you ugly?” and “Foxy kept you hot, kept your face in her puss/ What you think you gettin’ girls now because of your looks?”, “started cocking up my weapon slowly loading up this ammo to explode it on a Camel and his soldiers I can handle “. He also accuses Jay of brown nosing other rappers for fame: “Your ass went from Jaz to hangin’ with Kane, to Irv to Big/ And, Eminem murdered you on your own shit./ You a dick-ridin’ faggot. You love the attention” Not only does he criticize the usage of other rappers’ influence for increased fame, he mentions that Eminem outshined him on his song, “Renegade”. Finally, Nas insults Jay-Z’s biting of Big’s lyrics claiming that Jay-Z stole his rhyming skills off Biggie, “How much of Biggie’s rhymes gonna come out your fat lips?”. The intro of Ether starts with gunshots from Notorious B.I.G.’s Who Shot Ya?, immediately followed by a Screwed voice of 2Pac saying “Fuck Jay-Z”, originally taken from the song “Fuck Friendz”. In the outro of “Ether”, Nas mocks the chorus of “Takeover”, which Jay-Z raps “R-O-C, we runnin’ this rap shit”, Nas changes it to “R-O-C, get gunned up and clapped quick” and so on.
In an interview with This is 50, Large Professor stated the original version of Ether was produced by Swizz Beatz and the lyrical content contained in the original version was much more offensive, which even contained a line where Nas raps, “It should’ve been you in that plane crash”, referring to the infamous plane crash that caused the death of American singer Aaliyah, which occurred earlier the same year Stillmatic was released and during the time that the Jay-Z vs. Nas feud started up.
Jay-Z responded to “Ether” with three tracks; “People Talkin’”, “Don’t You Know” and “Supa Ugly”, in which he mentions the mother of Nas’ child. After a phone call from his mother, Jay-Z admitted he went too far and apologized. “Supa Ugly” marked the “official” end of the battle, although references to the beef can be found on Nas’ “Last Real Nigga Alive” from God’s Son, “U Wanna Be Me” from 8 Mile and “Everybody’s Crazy” from The Lost Tapes, and Jay-Z’s “Blueprint 2” from The Blueprint 2: The Gift and the Curse album.
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