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Nas says he once asked Eminem to collaborate on a song, but Em turned him down for a legitimate reason.
On Saturday, December 15, Joe Budden released his rare interview with Nasir and DJ PREMIER after they dropped their long-awaited joint album Light-Years. During their discussion, Budden asked Nas what artists that he's worked have given him "a long day" in the studio. Nas responded by saying "every last one of them" because he doesn't know what's going to come out of him whenever he works with another artist. That's when he recalled the time when he tried to get Eminem to hop on a song for his 2012 album Life Is Good.
"Every record I do is not a battle," he explained around the 52:40 mark. "I remember I had sent the song 'Daughters' to Eminem, and at the time, you know, he had spent so much time speaking on daughters, he was like, 'Thank you, but I told my daughter I'm not doing any more songs directly about daughters at the moment because that's a sensitive issue with all the music I put out.'"
"But he was like, 'Thank you, 'cause most people wanna do songs where they're battling me. It was refreshing to get a record where you're not coming for me,'" he added.
Nas and Eminem eventually did find the perfect song to collaborate on. The prolific MC's teamed up on "EPMD 2" for Nas' King's Disease II album in 2021.
Nas and Preemo go into detail about the making of their new album, as well as other topics, with Joe Budden. Watch the entire interview below.