King's Disease is released

Why it matters

King's Disease came out August 21, 2020, on Mass Appeal Records. Nas was 46. Hit-Boy produced the entire album. It was Nas's first album in two years and his first to fully feature one producer on every track since the early 2000s. The Hit-Boy combination would, across the next several years, produce three more Nas-Hit-Boy albums (King's Disease II, King's Disease III, Magic). The album won the 2021 Best Rap Album Grammy, which was Nas's first Grammy in any category after a long run of nominations across his career. There is an argument that the win was overdue by about twenty-five years (most of Nas's earlier albums were better and most of his earlier nominations were stronger), but the award is the award. The album itself is a strong late-Nas project: dense bars, melodic structure, Hit-Boy's clean modern production framing the writing without crowding it. "Replace Me" with Don Toliver, "27 Summers," "Ultra Black," "The Definition," "Spicy." You should hear King's Disease and the sequels in sequence. They are the most consistent late-career run Nas has put together.