The long-awaited The Lost Tapes 2 sequel is here courtesy of Nas. The compilation project arrived on Friday (July 19), which is nearly 17 years after the 2002 original. Rumblings about the effort began to leak out following an NYC listening party earlier this week, where Nas teased the idea of a third and fourth iteration of the series in the future.
The Queensbridge native rhymes over hard-hitting production laid down by an all-star cast that includes Kanye West, Pete Rock, Hit-Boy, Swizz Beatz,RZA, The Alchemist, No I.D., Statik Selektah, Pharrell and more. The project consists of unreleased cuts from Hip-Hop Is Dead, Untitled, Life Is Good, and Nasir sessions.
During a Wednesday night appearance (July 17) on The Daily Show in support of The Lost Tapes 2, Nas spoke about what inspired him to return with a sequel nearly two decades later. “I didn’t really know what to do with these songs because they weren’t really songs I wanted to put on the record,” he told host Trevor Noah. “They were just sitting there and I always thought I would come back to them and finish them off later, but it never happened. So I’m sitting there with all these songs starting to pile up and I’m like, ‘Oh I did a Lost Tapes album 17 years ago, and I think it’s time to make another one.'”
Shop new merchandise commemorating the compilation album here. Stream The Lost Tapes 2 below.