What kind of fuckery is this??!!? Just when we thought the divine tragedy that was Amy Winehouse’s death could get no blacker we must now contend with the truth that it was indeed Nasir Jones who made Amy miss the Slick Rick gig.
Now, sure. I heard the rumors that the song, “Me and Mr. Jones” might be about Nas, but sort of laughed it off like rumors of Jay-Z and Rihanna, or “You’re So Vain” being a song about Kanye West’s fashion show.
But now with Nas on record confirming that the song was about him, it ain’t hard to tell the connection. Both were erratic geniuses, peppering their traditional genre formalism with irresistible personality. And Nas has consistently been a hip-hop artist seeking out soul, while Amy was a soul singer seeking hip hop. Maybe the only thing that kept the love connection from happening was Amy loving blow, and Nas loving puff.
In the end we’re left only with dreams of these two tortured souls who could have made such sweet bittersweet music together. Nas coming off his “Distant Relatives” collabo with Damian Marley has been in an experimental mood the last couple years. Can you imagine him on some of those Ronson beats? One of his bigger mainstream songs was “Bridging the Gap,” which would have been right in Amy’s wheelhouse. And of course nothing was going to stand between Amy and her man.
Alas. Our only comfort is in Nas’ recently announced autobiography. If he decides to put some prose poetry in the book maybe we can get a peek at what Nas and Mrs. Winehouse might have been.