Nas is an American rapper, songwriter, actor, businessman, and investor. As you presumably already know, Nas first rose to fame as a hip-hop performer. His self-titled debut album from 1994 is recognized as one of the best in hip-hop history.
He has increased his fame in recent years as an early-stage company investor. Nas has made a lot of early investments that have been profitable, mostly in technology firms. Dropbox, Coinbase, Ring, Lyft, Genius, and Pluto TV are a few of Nas’ early investments in technology.
Nas Net Worth
Nas has a $70 million net worth. His record sales, touring income, Hennessey partnership, and investments provide the majority of his income. He made $35 million between September 2017 and September 2018. Nas made $19 million between September 2018 and September 2019.
Real Estate Investment
Nas paid $659,000 for a house in McDonough, Georgia, a neighborhood of Atlanta at the beginning of 2002. The 1999-built 3,592-square-foot house features two bedrooms, three full bathrooms, and one-half bathroom in addition to a swimming pool.
Nas and his then-wife Kelis spent $1.6 million buying a house in Los Angeles in the middle of 2007. Built-in 1947, the 3,207-square-foot house includes four bedrooms and three bathrooms. Nas paid $3.5 million in November 2021 for a house in Calabasas, California. Ten acres make up the property.
The Early Years of Nas
On September 14, 1973, Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones was born in Brooklyn. His mother Fannie Ann is from North Carolina, and his father Olu Dara is from Mississippi. His father performs jazz and blues music. His mother is a U.S. Postal Service employee.
Jabari Nas, also a rapper better known as Jungle, is Nas’s brother. The hip-hop group the Bravehearts includes Jabari. Nas started playing the trumpet at the age of four. Nas first encountered the then-unknown rap music when he was 9 years old. In 1985, his parents were divorced. Nas left school after the eighth grade.
Nas Career: Rise to Fame
Nas appeared on Main Source’s “Live at the Barbeque” in 1991. Nas’s then-manager MC Serch worked hard to get him a record deal with Columbia Records in the middle of 1992. On the song “Halftime” from the soundtrack for the movie Zebrahead, which MC Serch composed, Nas, made his solo debut.
The hip-hop scene paid Nas a lot of attention because of his excellent rhyme abilities. Illmatic, Nas’s first album, was released in 1994. Illmatic recorded several singles, such as “It Ain’t Hard to Tell,” “One Love,” and “The World Is Yours.” The Source named Illmatic the greatest album of 1994.
It Was Written, Nas’ second album, was released in 1996. “If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)” (with Lauryn Hill) and “Street Dreams” were two tracks that became immediately popular. Nas, AZ, Foxy Brown, and Cormega’s supergroup, the Firm, made its debut on It Was Written as well.
The Firm started working on its debut album after signing with Dr. Dre’s Aftermath Entertainment label. Halfway through the album’s recording, Cormega was let go from the group. The Firm’s fourth member is now Nature. The Firm by Nas, Foxy Brown, AZ, and Nature In 1997, The Album was published with mixed reviews.
Despite being awarded a platinum certification, the record didn’t do well, and The Firm broke up. Nas went on to record nine other albums, including I Am…, Nastradamus, Stillmatic, God’s Son, Street’s Disciple, Hip Hop Is Dead, Untitled, Life is Good, and Nasir in 2018.
He has received nominations for six MTV Music Video Awards and 13 Grammy Awards. He has one BET Award and three nominations for it. Nas, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and other people worked together on a song titled “Wrote My Way Out” in November 2016 that can be found on The Hamilton Mixtape.
Nas Investing In Startups: From Dropbox to Coinbase
Nas has continued to have a deep interest in and understanding cutting-edge technology over the years. He is a founding partner of Queensbridge Venture Partners, a venture capital business. Over the years, Queensbridge has made a large number of investments, some of which have seen significant value growth.
The firm normally invests between $100,000 and $500,000. Every month, the fund receives approximately 100 pitches from startup companies looking for funding. Dropbox, Lyft, SeatGeek, General Assembly, Robinhood, Casper, Pill Pack, Pluto TV, Coinbase, and Genius are just a few of QueensBridge’s most successful investments.
When Amazon purchased Ring in 2018 for $1.1 billion, Queensbridge owned a minor portion of the company. From Amazon, Queensbridge received $40 million in exchange for his ownership of Ring and Pill Pack. Pluto TV was purchased by Viacom for $340 million in 2019.
Coin base’s 2013 Series B round, which raised $25 million at a $143 million value, included QueensBridge as an investor. QueensBridge’s investment was worth between $35 million and $100 million when Coinbase went public in April 2021.
Nas should have sold his Coinbase shares during the first year after the IPO, since the company’s value had dropped to almost $13 billion by May 2022. Nas also has a partnership in the Sweet Chick chicken and waffle business. John Seymour initially opened a site in 2013.
The instant Nas entered Sweet Chick, he knew he wanted to be a part of the hip-hop-inspired southern restaurant. In addition to having outlets in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens in New York, Sweet Chick also has outposts in Los Angeles and London.
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Nas Family and Love Life
Destiny, Nas’s daughter, was born on June 15, 1994. Carmen Bryan, Nas’ ex-fiancee, is Destiny’s mother. Later, Carmen acknowledged having an affair with Jay-Z, Nas’s foe and adversary. Mary J. Blige and Nas had a brief romance. Fannie Ann, Nas’ mother, passed away in 2002.
Nas married the singer Kelis in Atlanta in 2005, following two years of dating. While seven months pregnant, Kelis filed for divorce in April 2009, citing irreconcilable differences. On July 21, 2009, Kelis gave birth to Nas’s son Knight.
On May 21, 2010, the couple’s divorce became legally binding. In 2018, Kelis claimed Nas had abused her physically and mentally while they were married. Nas has made a public accusation that Kelis has attacked him physically and verbally while engaging in “extremely aggressive behavior.”
The former partners’ relationship is still tense. Nas claimed that Kelis is hiding Knight from him, but Kelis, who has now remarried and given birth to a second son, refuted this. To honor their daughter Destiny’s 26th birthday in June 2020, Nas got back together with his ex Carmen Bryan.
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