ATLANTA, GA – MAY 19: (EDITORS NOTE: Image has been converted to black and white.) Rapper Nas performs in concert during 2018 Funk Fest Tour at Wolf Creek Amphitheater on May 19, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Paras Griffin/Getty Images)
Tonight, Nas will host a listening party in his hometown of Queens, New York, to premiere his new seven-song, Kanye West-produced studio album, Nasir. It’s the fourth of five scheduled albums produced by the G.O.O.D. Music mogul this summer, and like the releases that preceded it, Nas’ new project has generated excitement through a scarcity of details. And just as West’s two new releases, ye and Kids See Ghosts, followed the rapper’s controversial, scorched-earth media blitz, Nas’ album arrives amidst controversy in the form of assault allegations from his ex-wife, Kelis.
The difference is, while fans and critics still want to crucify West for his asinine public behavior, they haven’t bothered to hold Nas accountable for the allegations levied against him.
In a Hollywood Unlocked interview published on April 26, Kelis accused Nas of “physical and mental abuse” over the course of their marriage, which lasted from 2005 to 2010. The “Milkshake” singer claimed Nas would often get blackout drunk and come for her in a violent rage. She said she would fight back in self-defense, but Nas would often wake up with no recollection of the previous night’s events. “Literally, we would have the worst night ever and we would wake up the next day, and it’s like it never happened,” Kelis told Hollywood Unlocked.
Kelis’ testimony still sounds tragically familiar, even as proponents of the #MeToo movement try to effect change within the music industry by forcing artists to reckon with their own histories of sexual assault, physical and mental abuse and other problematic behavior. So far, the results have proven inconsistent. In March, 20-year-old rapper XXXTentacion debuted his sophomore album, ?, atop the Billboard 200, even as he awaited trial for charges including aggravated battery of a pregnant woman, domestic battery by strangulation and witness tampering. Last month, Spotify announced it would remove XXXTentacion and R. Kelly—who has faced multiple accusations of sexual misconduct, including running a “sex cult”—from its playlists as part of a new hate content and hateful conduct policy. Despite the ban, Kelly’s streaming numbers increased, and Spotify subsequently dropped its policy following criticism from high-profile artists including Kendrick Lamar. Chris Brown continues to chart successful albums and singles nearly a decade after being arrested for attacking his then-girlfriend Rihanna and pleading guilty to felony assault.
While some of these artists are finally starting to face the fallout from their actions, many of them have weathered the allegations against them and emerged relatively unscathed. (This is to say nothing of predominantly white classic rock artists, such as Led Zeppelin and David Bowie, whose legacies remain intact despite their histories of sexual misconduct.) But even within the realm of hip-hop and R&B, the allegations dogging Nas remain something of an anomaly. Earlier today, the Daily Dot and Billboard both published op-eds addressing the controversy, but before that, virtually zero high-profile publications made a peep about it. As the Dot’s Ramon Ramirez notes, even Twitter—the place where one is most likely to find swift condemnation of a problematic fave—has had little to say about the allegations, with many users instead expressing their excitement over Nas’ impending album.
This lack of criticism is especially jarring when considering the collective outrage directed at West, Nasir’s producer. The 41-year-old rapper has exhausted and infuriated fans over the past two months with his brazen endorsements of Donald Trump and his suggestion that slavery was a choice. Writers quickly dismissed West’s elementary politics and swore off his work, while dissenters on Twitter motioned to “cancel” their former hero. Of course, much of that outrage proved nothing more than big talk: West just claimed his eighth No. 1 album and posted huge streaming numbers with ye.
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