Nas Not Getting Dropped by Label Over Controversial Album Title

Rumors regarding rapper Nas being dropped by his record label over the title of his next album are reportedly false. Nas has been at the center of controversy since announcing his ninth studio album would be called Nigger. The story of the Queensbridge rapper being dropped was initially reported by Mediatakeover, who quoted an "insider" as saying "If Nas doesn't change his mind, he'll be dropped. And he doesn't have to much time to come to that realization." Rock Daily spoke to an Island Def Jam spokesperson who said of Mediatakeover's claims, "That is absolutely ridiculous and untrue." Nigger is tentatively scheduled for a February release.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

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