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The Nas, Frank Ocean Collaboration That Never Happened

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Nas and his Def Jam labelmate Frank Ocean were supposed to get together for a collaboration, which could have been big news for these two hot artists, but it never got off the ground.

On Tuesday, Nas dropped his critically acclaimed 10th solo LP, Life Is Good, and just a week before that, the Odd Future singer/songwriter released his groundbreaking major-label debut, Channel Orange.

The timing for a collaboration would have been perfect. But it never happened. Back on July 4, The New York Times reported that there was a track Nas and Frank Ocean had been working on called “No Such Thing as White Jesus,” but after G.O.O.D. Music producer Hit-Boy lost the digital session, the song was lost. Talk about painful. How much money did Hit-Boy lose for everybody involved?

Nas wouldn’t confirm that “White Jesus” was the exact track he had planned to record with Ocean, but admitted that a collaboration between him and Frank would be pretty big. “I’ve talked about a song with Frank Ocean about a year and a half before anybody worked with him and since then it’s been a heavily anticipated record, but I didn’t talk about which song actually,” he told MTV News last Monday night.

In a New York Times profile of Ocean by Jon Caramanica, Frank Ocean sang some lyrics he said were intended for his record with Nas. “Whatever you do, young king, don’t wind up dead/ Young queen, cross your legs/ Put a crown on your head and remove the chains/ ‘Cause even diamond chains are for slaves/ Don’t set foot in no penitentiary and don’t taste the poison/ Don’t you bail on your families,” Frank Ocean sang for the veteran journalist.

Nas confirmed that he and the Channel Orange singer never got a chance to complete their track. “Now, I’ve talked about us working and we never got to that point, completing a great record,” he said before pondering the potential outcome. “Who knows? I guess it would’ve been a big record if it ever came to light.”

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