Jay-Z and Nas' first collaboration is finally out… on a Shaquille O'Neal album reissue

Jay-Z and Nas' first collaboration finally got an official release on the reissue of – seriously – Shaquille O'Neal's 1996 album. You can't stop the reign.

The song is called “No Love Lost” and features Shaq along with Jay, Nas and fellow New York City MC Lord Tariq. But when the track was first released in the mid-90s, only Jay-Z and Lord Tariq appeared alongside the NBA star. Nas had written and recorded a verse for the song, but as O'Neal explained during a 2022 show up Drink Champs“You know how it is with the clearances and the publication and all that… People didn't clear it up.”

Although never officially released, the version of the song featuring Jay, Nas and Lord Tariq was eventually (and perhaps inevitably) leaked. A version appeared on a mixtape by DJ Clue in 1996 called The Fall, Pt. 1, and in the early 2000s, the track was all over Mp3 sharing platforms like Limewire and Napster, where it was often known as “Analyze This”. At that point, too, the song had taken on added significance amid the infamous Jay-Z/Nas feud.

In his own Drink Champs interview, O'Neal suggested that no love (sorry) was lost in scrapping the original Nas version due to clearance issues. “I didn't take it personally,” Shaq said. “Because again, I'm in the studio with Nas? I'm happy! I call my boyfriend and I'm like, 'Hey, come on, Nas. I call my boyfriend and say, “Hey, Jay in here.” I call my boyfriend and say, “Yo Biggie at home, we're playing jump in the Sea-Doos.” That's the point”.

(To further drive home his point, O'Neal offered a blunt assessment of the financial benefits—or lack thereof—of his association with the music industry. “I went platinum,” he quipped, “they showed me the check and I was like , “That's bullshit!” Then I learned a valuable word: “Recover.”)

As for Jay-Z and Nas, the two officially buried the hatchet in the mid-2000s and have since appeared on many tracks together. The first, “Black Republican,” was released in 2006 on Nas' Hip Hop is deadwhile a year later they appeared together in “Success” by Jay's American gangster. Most recently, in 2021, they appeared on DJ Khaled's “Sorry Not Sorry.” Khaled Khaled album.