Did Nas jack a Wordsmith track?

You guys heard the recently leaked "Surviving The Times" track from Nas, right? It's off his forthcoming Greatest Hits package, and my boy Wordsmith hit me with this link, discussing the similarities between a track of his entitled "As The Art Fades Away" and the Nas track (hear Words' track on his MySpace page). Check some excerpts of Wordsmith's piece about the similarities between the two:

I wrote my track “As the Art Fades Away” in 2006, as an unofficial version that I actually recently re-recorded for my debut album “The Next Level Experience” on Saturday, October 6th until I heard about this. My in house producer Strada made this beat a year ago and I am here to just state the facts and not attack Nas, so I just ask that everyone judges this fairly. No producer is going start a track the exact same way and no producer is going use the same sounds, loops, rhythems, etc. to create a track. My version starts off with a sample of my own voice saying “The pop rap charts make the art fade away” followed by “That’s the whole tragic point my friend.” Now, whoever produced Nas’s version, and I heard its Chris Webber, which sounds rather odd to me, would not start there track off with the same sample unless they heard it somewhere else first. To me they strung the sample out from there, so it would sound different, but the piano, horn, and baseline are exactly the same way my producer laid his.

So Words is saying Chris Webber (will Nas ever learn?) might have cribbed how Words' track started ouw, samples and all? Chris needs to be training, not producing (jacking?) beats for Escobar...

Two, my producer used “What Would I do” as the hook part of my song and I Chose to fill it in by saying Imagine if certain rappers never did what they did, how would the game be. Nas’s version uses the same concept, but the producer uses a different section of the song where its says,”What Would I do,” from the Wiz and just looped the hook. I have never officially released this track and it can only be heard on my myspace page.
Reminds me of the whole Apex Productions/"I Get Money" MySpace cribbing...
Finally, please don't look at this as I am complaining because I am not, I just felt the need to speak on it because so many great people have come to my defense, so I would like to thank everyone out there for that and I even would like to think any haters as well because we all have a job to do. So what I have done is post links to both tracks below, please check them out and leave your comments.

What do you think? The Nas track; the Wordsmith track. Did they jack Wordsmith?
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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I produced As The Art Fades Away
my name is Strada and I am from Montreal, Canada.
No hate, just music.
Peace
www.mysapce.com/strada514

Anonymous said...

Whoa. Yea this is really suspect to me... I love Nas too, but I know Wordsmith has had this song out for quite some time. Even though a song might have the same sample... c'mon, whats the likelihood of it being the same concept + the same intro.

Just FYI. The original rough cut version of Wordsmith's "As the Art Fades Away" is available on our Reinvintage Mix CD that comes FREE with any purchase from our online store. Just throwing that out there in case anybody is interested in having it. Will probably be the only place that version can be found.

Anonymous said...

LET ME FIRST SAY CONGRATS TO YOU MY MAN WORD FOR YOUR PROFFESIONALISM THROUGH ALL THIS CONTROVERSY ITS TRUE THIS BIZ DISHES OUT ALOT OF SHIT WE EAT IT UP SPIT IT OUT N MOVE ON I RESPECT YOUR COMMENTS YOU NEVER ACCUSSED YOU QUESTIONED AND INDEED YOU DID DESERVE TOO LET ME SET YOUR MIND AT EASE THE FANS KNOW WHAT THE DEAL IS ITS YOUR TRACK YOU N YOUR BOY STRADA YOU DID A HELL OF A IDEA/CONCEPT YOU ALLOWED THE PUBLIC TO LISTEN AND JUDGE AND YOU WERE AND ARE OPEN TO INTERVIEWS SOME SAY IT WAS PUBLICITY I THINK NOT YOUR A WISE MAN ANF FROM WHAT I HEAR AND HEARD A MAN OF RESPECT AND TALENT I DONT FEEL IT IS YOU TO DO A PUBLICITY STUNT YOU NEVER ASKED FOR A MONETARY SETTLEMENT ALL YOU WANT IS RECOGNITION AND DESERVINGLY WELL
THE PUBLIC IS ASKIN AND AS WELL AS I QUESTION WHY HAVENT WE HEARD FROM NAS OR WEBBER THEY ARE MOST LIKELY LISTENING TO THIER REPS WHO THEY PAY TO HELP THEM WITH THIS SHIT AND THEY ARE TELLING THEM SAY NOTHING GUESS WHAT WRONG ANSWER YOUR THEN PAYING THEM FOR POOR ADVICE MY BROTHERS WE ARE MEN THIS IS OUR BIZ OUR LIFE OUR NAMES WE NEED TO BE MEN AND COME FOWARD SPEAK UP BE HEARD OR BE QUIET WEAK AND GUILTY AND ASHAMED MY MAN BRINKS YO MAN YOU FED YOUR BOT TO THE WOLVES THATS SO HARSH YOU GET PAID TO DO A JOB YOU CAME OFF SO UNPREPARED JOHHNY C WOULD OF RIPPED YOU A NEW ASSHOLE BE SMART NOW IM SURE THERE WILL BE THE HATERS WHO WRTE COMMENTS BACK AGAINST WHAT IVE SAID SO BE IT JUST KNOW I KNOW THIS GAME I RUN THIS GAME IM SITTIN BACK SMILIN AND WORD ILL BE SEEIN YOU AND YOU DEF BE BRINGIN US PLAYAZ SOME COMPETITION I WILL SAY THAT PEACE