Nas discography: History and Key Facts

The discography of Nas, an American rapper, consists of seventeen studio albums, one collaborative album, one group album, five compilations, four mixtapes, one extended play, and seventy-nine singles (including twelve collaboration singles and thirty-three as a featured artist). Nas has sold over 20 million records in the United States alone, and 35 million albums worldwide.

The son of jazz musician Olu Dara, Nas dropped out of school during ninth grade and began his music career in 1991 with a guest performance on the song "Live at the Barbeque" by Main Source. In 1992, Nas featured on the MC Serch posse cut, “Back to the Grill”, alongside Chubb Rock and Red Hot Lover Tone, and later contributed the track, "Halftime" to the soundtrack to the film Zebrahead. Soon after, Nas signed to Columbia Records, where he released his debut album Illmatic in 1994. Including Nas's solo debut track "Halftime", Illmatic was certified double platinum in the US, spawned several singles including "It Ain't Hard to Tell" and "The World Is Yours", earning considerable critical acclaim.

With a more mainstream-oriented sound, Nas's second album It Was Written was released in 1996 and included the Lauryn Hill collaboration "If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)" and "Street Dreams", the latter of which reached number 22 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number 1 on the Hot Rap Singles chart. It Was Written was later certified triple platinum. In 1999, Nas released two albums: I Am... and Nastradamus. I Am reached double platinum status like its preceding album It Was Written and spawned two singles that reached the top ten spots of the Hot Rap Singles chart, "Hate Me Now" and "Nas Is Like". While Nastradamus signaled a decrease in critical reception and sold only half as many units, it still featured two charting singles ("You Owe Me" and the title track), and was eventually certified platinum by the RIAA.

Nas released Stillmatic in 2001, with two singles that once again made the top ten spots of the Billboard rap chart, "Got Ur Self A..." and "One Mic". Nas's 2002 album God's Son included "I Can", his most successful single on the Hot 100 that charted at number 12 there. Nas's 2004 double album Street's Disciple, however, failed to produce any major charting singles. Nas then signed to Def Jam Recordings Def Jam label in 2006 and debuted on Def Jam with Hip Hop Is Dead, his third album to reach number 1 on the American Billboard 200 album chart. In 2008, Nas released an untitled album that he controversially almost titled Nigger. This album, along with its 2012 follow-up Life Is Good, both topped the Billboard 200.

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from Nas discography by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.