Those would be Illmatic, It Was Written, I Am…, and Nastradamus

Despite Illmatic dropping in 1994, Nas’s rap debut was in 1991 on “Live At The Barbecue” by Main Source and he went on tour with Large Professor (a member of Main Source) before Illmatic dropped. “Takeover” was recorded in 2001 so that was about 10 years.

Jay claims to be richer, more successful, and more critically acclaimed than Nas even though Nas has been rapping for twice as long.

To be fair to Nas, Jay is fudging the numbers a bit. He counts Nas’s entire career right from his debut on “Live at the Barbeque” but completely ignores his own output prior to Reasonable Doubt. That leaves out Jay’s work with The Jaz (which began way back in 1986) and early 90s features like “Can I Get Open” and “Show And Prove” which came out around the same time as Nas’s first solo material.

Count both artists' careers from their debut albums and there’s really only two years between them. Technically, if you go by their first features, Jay has a good 5 years on Nas.

Jay claims that the reason Nas didn’t even make any money off Jay Z’s use of his songs is not because Hova treated him unfairly, but because Nas unwisely gave the substantive rights to his A&R executive Michael “MC Serch” Berrin – head of Serchlite Publishing

MC Serch weighs in:

I never really paid that line much mind. It was a way of Jay getting underneath Nas' skin. The truth of the matter is we don’t own Nas' publishing, never have. We administer Nas' publishing, but Nas owns his own publishing. So when Jay said he paid Serchlite Publishing, it’s not necessarily true. It’s just a way of getting under Nas' skin.

MC Serch also claims in an interview that there was no such company as Serchlite Publishing at the time this song was made. He had a company called Serchlight and Jay took it from there. He started Serchlight Publishing years later.

Jay also plays on the word “coin”, to mean both money, and “invent a new phrase”. Rather than coining the phrase, all it did was propel Jay’s track in to the stratosphere.

Nas' line in “The World Is Yours”: “I’m out for presidents to represent me” was the hook of Jay-Z’s classic Dead Presidents II. Even though it´s more than a hot line, in fact a classic and Rapabout.com ranked it in their top 10 rap songs.

The unauthorized use – which was fair use, but whatever! – sparked their whole beef.

Also a very clever reference to an earlier diss, undoubtedly at Jay Z in “Come Get Me” by Nas.

“You make hot songs but she know you steal from me”

Jay has actually sampled Nas' voice for hooks on two different songs – “Dead Presidents II” and “Rap Game/Crack Game.”

Jay is referring here to the line from “Represent”

Pullin' a Tec out the dresser, police got me under pressure

As well as Nas' 1992 boast about “keep[ing] a Tec-9 in my dresser” in his verse on MC Serch’s “Back to the Grill”

The Illmatic album was indeed very observational, painting a vivid picture of street life as a whole, rather than simply recounting Nas' own (alleged) exploits. Jay is implicitly contrasting Nas to his own stance as a rapper who talks about his own street experiences.

The line was a response to the hook in Nas' song “Project Windows” where he talks about his life in the projects with his parents.

Lookin' out of my project window
Oh, I feel uninspired
Lookin' out of my project window
Oh, it makes me feel, so tired

An accusation taken out of Nas book, from his Stillmatic freestyle:

You master fabricated stories of streets and sound slick

Nas' first album Illmatic is widely regarded as a classic. Jay mentions is frequently in his book Decoded in a respectful manner. He even claimed to have a bootleg copy of the record, on his song “A Star Is Born”.

As with much of this verse, and many diss tracks in general, Jay takes some liberties here, as It Was Written, his second album, was greatly received and even got the same ratings as Jay Z´s debut in the source. At the time hip-hops bible.

It was really only Nastradamus that got poor reception and reviews.