PUBLISHED BY JAKE PAINE | NOVEMBER 20, 2017 

Music industry veteran Steve Stoute recently launched UnitedMasters, a company that allows musicians to market directly to their fans across digital platforms. The service promotes artists keeping their master recordings and provides resources for the modern market that once seemed reserved for major label acts. Stoute is the latest guest on The Rap Radar Podcast. For nearly two hours, the former Kid ‘n Play roadie details his experiences, especially with 20-plus-year affiliate, Nas. At the top of the two-part video

interview, Stoute speaks about Nas’ 1996 sophomore album, It Was Written. The Columbia/Sony Records release remains Nas’ best-selling LP, and a pivot from his 1994 debut, Illmatic. The album debuted at #1, in a summer where the Main Source protégé was warring with Tupac, assembling The Firm, and changing his sound and style. In reacting to the comment that many in this generation consider It Was Written to be a classic, Stoute says “That sh*t makes me so happy, bro. ‘Cause the sh*t I went through at that time…,” in a chat with hosts Elliott Wilson and Brian “B.Dot” Miller. “I had to make the follow-up to Illmatic, and then I had to make the follow-up to Mary J. Blige’s My Life; I’m the executive producer to Share My World.

I kept thinking during the entire time, ‘I have to make the follow-up to two of the best albums of all-time.’ I gotta go in there and figure it out. Of course, you want to move the artist forward, but you don’t want to f*ck up what made the artist and what made them dope. I mean, My Life is a masterpiece…what Puff [Daddy] did with that album is just phenomenal. It’s hard to believe how him, Chucky [Thompson], and that team made that whole album, and the lyrics, and music, it was just so advanced. And obviously, Illmatic is one of, if not the greatest Hip-Hop album of all-time.” In 1994, Stoute was not involved in the career of Nas. Then, the 20-year-old was around a cast that included 3rd Bass’ MC Serch as manager, mentor Large Professor, and others. First praising Illmatic, Stoute says, “[Nas] took no lines off on that whole album…from the time that first verse starts, the top of the first verse ’til you get to the end of that song, every single word has a purpose. There’s not one throwaway line. There’s not some bullsh*t metaphor to get you out of a tough [rhyme].”

Read more at http://ambrosiaforheads.com/2017/11/nas-illmatic-to-it-was-written-...