Shannon Sharpe confronted Jim Jones about his claim that he’s a better rapper than Nas.
In an episode of Sharpe and Chad “Ochocinco” Johnson’s podcast, Nightcap, Sharpe asked Jones if he smokes—presumably weed—to which the Dipset rapper said yes.
“Were you smoking when you said you were better than Nas?” Sharpe asked at around the 14:55 minute mark, extremely seriously, prompting Jones to double down on his position that he is, indeed, nicer than Nasty Nas.
“Let’s get this right—I’m way more influential than Nas,” Jones said immediately.
“Nas was nice when I was in high school,” Capo said, acknowledging the Queens rapper’s influence on him. “Nas was dope. We appreciate him. He had a little bit of a run. But Nas always came up second to [Jay-Z] and DMX and all these other people. He never had that type of influence on us, except for his first album.”
“I used to want to dress like Nas,” Jones added. “He had one of the illest albums of all time. … I’m a real fan of Nas. But he kind of lost me after the movie Belly and shit like that.”
Jones also nodded to The Diplomats’ short-lived feud with Nas in the early 2000s: “We the ones that went wild on them boys,” he said, in reference to Dipset’s 2003 song, “I Really Mean It.”
Even though Sharpe pushed back, asserting that Nas lyrically transcends Jones, the Harlem native wouldn’t relent. “Let Nas stick up for himself and meet me in the booth or something if he wants to do something historical,” Jones said. “I would run circles around Nas rapping right now, bro.”
Jones tried to clear the air when he told Sharpe that he was “not mad.” He continued, “It’s about the sportsmanship of the game. I’m a very aggressive person. I seem to get misconstrued when I’m talking my shit. I’m just talking my shit, you heard?”
But tensions heightened again when Jones suggested that Sharpe and Ocho invited him on Nightcap to hike their ratings. That accusation caused Sharpe to clap back. “This the biggest podcast you’ve ever been on,” he said.
Sharpe challenged Jimmy Jones after he appeared on Fat Joe and Jadakiss’ podcast last week and boasted about his achievements. “They forget, I got a hell of a catalog. Gold records, platinum records. … Check my track record. Then check everybody else track record,” he said.
Jones added, “If you want to go to the Billboard entries, pull up Nas’ Billboard entries and pull up my Billboard entries.”
If we’re basing the comparison on chart-topping songs and albums, Nas eclipses Jones. Jones, as a solo artist, has had two of his songs reach the Billboard Hot 100, one of which made it into the Top 10. Nas has 27 Hot 100 entries and two Top 10 hits.
Jones has three albums that have charted on the Billboard 200 albums chart, while Nas has 27. Of Nas’ entries on the album chart, 16 landed in the Top 10, and six reached No. 1.
Jones acknowledged his blunder when speaking to Sharpe and Ocho, saying, “I know I made a little boo boo when we talk about the sales…I don’t feel like getting into that rhetoric.”
But Jones didn’t stop there. He took to his Instagram on Monday and challenged Sharpe to meet him in the gym.
Sharpe hasn’t appeared to respond.
