Halftime

Two years prior to the release of “Illmatic“, Nas' debut single “Halftime” was released in 1992 from the “Zebrahead“ soundtrack. The jazzy boom bap track was produced by Large Professor, who provided some background information on the recording of the track in an interview with XXL:

"The session for “Halftime” was hot, ‘cause he was gettin’ his big chance. I had the beat already. And we sat there, cooled out a lil' bit. And he was takin' it easy, ‘cause he was like, “This is my turn now, and I’m gon’ make it count.”"

An excerpt of Marc Lamont Hill’s superb essay about the song, “Critical Pedagogy Comes At Halftime: Nas As Black Public Intellectual,” can be found here.

Busta Rhymes said this to XXL about the song:

"I went over , & he made the “Halftime” beat in front of me, & he was gonna give it to me at the time. I didn’t know what to do with it. I didn’t know why I didn’t know what to do with it, because I loved the shit out the beat. Then I heard it on “Halftime,” & I was like, Goddamn, I was a stupid ass for not touching this beat!"

Busta Rhymes: I just took it in stride. I was feeling good that niggas was feelin’ that way about me. I just appreciated Jungle when he told me that.

Nas said this about the song to XXL:

"I remember one time Busta Rhymes stopping by , & I met him. I guess he knew me from being with Large Professor… And my brother told him that he should leave Leaders of the New School & go solo. "