Nas Hasn’t Heard Any Illmatic Tributes

Nas is a busy man.

Though two buzzworthy tributes to his seminal debut, Illmatic, have dropped in the past year-and-a-half, the Queensbridge lyricist has yet to listen to the projects.

"I wanna get a chance to sit down and vibe to those shits ‘cause those are not records that I just wanna play," Nas, who said he's flattered whenever MCs pay homage to Illmatic, told XXL. "Those are records I wanna sit down and really get into and see what the hell they about on the shit. That’s some cool shit, though. Real cool shit. I love that they did it."

In June 2010, former XXL Freshman Fashawn dropped Ode to Illmatic exclusively with XXLMag.com. Roughly a year later, Detroit wordsmith Elzhi released Elmatic, also exclusively with XXLMag.com. At the time of Elmatic's release, Elzhi told XXL that he'd given a copy of the tape to Nas's manager, but had yet to hear any feedback. The mixtape became a worldwide trending topic on Twitter.

Nas currently graces the cover of XXL Magazine's November issue.—Carl Chery @cchery