Hit-Boy Teased A Snippet Of A New Collaboration With Nas, ‘E.P.M.D.’

Last year Queens rapper Nas released a new album called King’s Disease, the follow-up to his admittedly rushed Kanye West-produced Nasir in 2018. Although that record was a gamble in itself, due to the sometimes brilliant, sometimes wildly unstable genius of Ye, he seems to have hit upon something good by collaborating with Hit-Boy on King’s Disease.

Now, the pair have previewed another new project in the works via a video Hit-Boy shared on Twitter tonight. “New Nas E.P.M.D this Friday,” the producer wrote in the caption, sharing the initials of either a new song — or maybe a full album? — most likely named in homage to New York rap duo EPMD, composed of rappers Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith.

From the sound of the 50-second video clip, which shows the pair listening to a snippet of the new song in the studio, it will just be a new song. But given how much time everyone has had on their hands due to the pandemic, lockdown, quarantine and a dearth of live shows, there might be more than one new track between these two.

In the song Nas criticizes social media and other big tech companies like the new audio app Clubhouse. “Why you talking on Clubhouse, the guns out / This ain’t audio chat boy this audio crack / Social media platforms they ratting on / Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon / Some say…” and the clip trails off right there. Ironically absent from the list is Twitter, where the duo chose to share the clip. Guess Jack and his crew are safe from the wrath of new Nas bars… for now.

Some fans are worried that announcing the release date early in the week gives Jay-Z enough time to release something of his own in an attempt to eclipse his longtime rival. Jay and Bey famously dropped their surprise joint album Everything Is Love as The Carters the day after Nasir came out, and last year on the release day of King’s Disease Jay put out his collaboration with Pharrell, “Entrepreneur.”