Īfter another New York City rapper, Jay-Z, attacked Nas in his album The Blueprint, Nas released Stillmatic in 2001 with a track responding to Jay-Z's attack along with two singles that once again made the top ten spots of the Billboard rap chart, " Got Ur Self A." and " One Mic".
Still, Nastradamus featured two charting singles, " You Owe Me", " Nastradamus" and was certified platinum. While I Am reached double platinum status like its preceding album It Was Written and spawned two singles that reached the top ten spots of the Hot Rap Singles chart, " Hate Me Now" and " Nas Is Like", Nastradamus signaled a decrease in quality and critical reception and sold only half as many units. It Was Written was certified double platinum. With a more mainstream-oriented sound, Nas's second album It Was Written was released in 1996 and included the Lauryn Hill collaboration " If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)" and " Street Dreams", the latter of which reached number 22 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and number 1 on the Hot Rap Singles chart. Including Nas's solo debut track "Halftime", Illmatic was certified platinum in the US, spawned several singles including " It Ain't Hard to Tell" and " The World Is Yours", and earned much critical acclaim. Soon Nas ignited enough hype and signed to Columbia Records, where he released his debut album Illmatic in 1994. In 1992, Nas featured on the MC Serch posse cut, “Back to the Grill”, alongside Chubb Rock and Red Hot Lover Tone, and later contributed the track, "Halftime" to the soundtrack to the film, Zebrahead. The son of jazz musician Olu Dara, Nas dropped out of school during ninth grade and began his music career in 1991 with a guest performance on the song "Live at the Barbeque" by Main Source. The discography of Nas, an American rapper, consists of fourteen studio albums, one collaborative album, one group album, five compilations, four mixtapes, one extended play, and seventy-nine singles (including twelve collaboration singles and thirty-three as a featured artist).