Daniel Arsham x Nas

Courtesy Nas

Abrams, Jonathan. “Raising the Bar: New York City 1993-2003.” In The Come Up: An Oral History of the Rise of Hip-Hop. New York: Crown, 2022.

LIMITED EDITION ARSHAM "FUTURE RELICS: LOST TAPES II CRYSTAL ERODED CASSETTE" ARTIST'S PROOF FROM PERSONAL COLLECTION OF NASIR JONES

Son of jazz musician Olu Dara, Nasir Jones was born in Queens, New York in 1973. Raised in the same Queensbridge housing development that produced Marley Marl and the Juice Crew, Nasir Jones—to be known professionally as "Nas"—would become one of the prominent figures on the East Coast Hip Hop scene before the age of 25.

Signing to Columbia Records after a proto-viral performance as "Nasty Nas" on "Live at the Barbeque" in 1991, Nas's debut Illmatic would drop three years laterto immediate acclaim in 1994. On Illmatic , Nas pioneered the use of a roster of producers on a single EP—moving away from the single-producer sounds of the genre's first two decades—creating a "dynamic soundscape" that highlighted the singularity of the young MC's multisyllabic internal rhyme scheme. Impressing the industry and Hip Hop heads alike with it's "pinpoint lyricism" and high caliber production, Illmatic carved out Nas' permanent spot in the highest echelons of rap artistry (Abram 346-7).

15 albums and 25 years later, Nas announces the release of his long-awaited The Lost Tapes II album on Instagram, holding one of Daniel Arsham's Future Relic sculptures: a decayed cassette tape bearing the project’s title. The Lost Tapes II was a follow-up to his 2002 release, The Lost Tapes, that complied previously unrelease tracks from Nas' third and fifth studio albums, I Am...(1999) and Stillmatic (2001). Arsham's design was limited to an edition of 20 pieces, with half of the proceeds donated to Nas's elementary school in Queens, and the other half benefiting Arsham's alma mater, the Cooper Union.  In 2020, no. 17 of 20 of these Lost Tapes 2 Crystal Eroded Cassettes sold at Sotheby's for $13,860.

Dnaiel Arsham is a contemporary visual artist whose work exists between architecture, art, and performance. He manipulates and reinterprets existing materials and structures, perhaps most spectacularly in his latest Future Relic projects. He has collaborated with numerous artists and brands, including NAS, Pharrell Williams, Adidas, Hajime Sorayama, Alex Mustonen (Snarkitecture), and Kim Jones (Dior) to name but a few.