Raekwon took to Instagram Live recently to address rumors that Nas was dissing Jim Jones in an alternate verse from their new song “The Omerta” from the Wu-Tang legend’s latest album The Emperor’s New Clothes that surfaced online.
“Nas did not write that verse for Jim. That was a stray shot Jim got hit with,” The Chef told fans on IG Live. “Y’all made it seem like that was for Jim. Nas wasn’t dissing Jim. He wasn’t dissing him. And the reason why he changed it? Because he knew that at the end of the day, ‘Damn, Chef I gave you this verse months ago, and now all this sh—t is popping up.’”
He then revealed that the Queensbridge rapper decided to switch up his verse last minute because he wanted to avoid this very conversation.
“When I’m getting ready to drop my album,” he began to explain. “Nas hits me and says, ‘Yo, Chef, I’ma do another verse, my n—a, because I don’t know for some reason I think that this rhyme right here is gonna make n—as feel like I’m dissin’ Jim and I’m not. This rhyme I made way before all this sh—t ever came.’”
He added that he would never put a diss song on one of his albums about a person that he’s cool with. “And this is real sh—t, I don’t have to lie to ya n—as, man. I promise ya n—as, he wasn’t dissing Jim,” he again reiterated. “This ain’t no diss record. And if it was a diss record, why would he put it on my record? ‘Cause guess what? I f—k with Jim. He know I f—k with Jim.”
The leaked verse in question is somewhat similar to the verse that eventually made the cut aside from the lines below where Nas addresses his haters: “Got smoke with me? Beef with yourself/ I be chiefin’ too hard to notice every week it’s somebody else/ Soon as my name’s mentioned lames are offended/ If words hurt you, it wasn’t intended/ But when it comes to my words if I said it I meant it/ If the shoe fits, this one is for you b—tch/ You got me confused with your fabricated false form of delusion/ You’re dusty, need to be b—tch-smacked, face under stomped feet on concrete.”
The Jim Jones versus Nas discussion began when a clip of a 22-year-old college student from New Jersey stated on a podcast that he was influenced more by Jim Jones than by Nas. Jones then predictably defended himself on the Joe and Jada podcast.
“When it came to dressin’, the wordplay, the music, everything,” he said. “I was a superior Nas fan, period. I’ll never take that away from him. But then, as I got in the game, you gotta realize, your idols become rivals. Not to take away anything from that. I developed my own style and my own lane that these kids started to gravitate towards to, the same way I gravitated towards Nas when I younger.”
He also told Angie Martinez that he didn’t realize defending himself would make everybody so upset and underestimated Nas’ standing within the rap community.
“Man, I didn’t know how many people loved Nas, though,” he admitted. “I’m watching people go absolutely batsh–t crazy, like goddamn. But that’s hip-hop. There’s people that I adored as a fan too that I’ll probably go batsh–t crazy for in the same situation, I love it, that’s what the game was built on. Let’s not make no mistake, I put in a lot of work and I did a lot of incredible things that a lot of people have not gotten to do in this industry.”
