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Nas<\/a> and DJ Premier<\/a>\u2018s long-awaited joint album is officially happening \u2014 and fans don\u2019t have to wait much longer to hear it.<\/p>\n On Tuesday (November 25), the two hip-hop titans revealed the title, release date and artwork for their eagerly anticipated full-length collaboration.<\/p>\n The project is called Light-Years<\/em> and will drop on December 12 via Mass Appeal Records.<\/p>\n Check out the cover art below.<\/p>\n Light-Years<\/em> will mark the seventh and final installment in the label\u2019s Legend Has It\u2026<\/em> series, which has blessed us with brand new albums from some of New York hip-hop\u2019s finest names throughout 2025.<\/p>\n Slick Rick<\/a> kickstarted things in June with his comeback LP Victory<\/em>, before Raekwon<\/a> (The Emperor\u2019s New Clothes<\/em>), Ghostface Killah<\/a> (Supreme Clientele 2<\/em>), Mobb Deep<\/a> (Infinite<\/em>), the late Big L<\/a> (Harlem\u2019s Finest: Return of the King<\/em>) and De La Soul<\/a> (Cabin in the Sky<\/em>) took the baton.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s 1995 all over again,\u201d Nas, who co-owns Mass Appeal Records, said of the series in a recent interview with Rolling Stone<\/em><\/a>. \u201cSometimes I feel like 2025 has that feeling. It\u2019s not going backwards, [it\u2019s] going forward, though. It\u2019s that feeling of urgency, that vibration, the celebration of life and these songs and these albums, what they meant 30 years ago. It\u2019s still thriving right now.<\/p>\n \u201cEven from younger people, they\u2019re all derivatives of that early sound. And these artists here, from Slick Rick \u2014 he is the reason that all of us even have a pen in our hands. You look at him and you think of Mobb Deep, and you think of Raekwon and Ghostface, De La Soul, [it\u2019s] some of the most different, brave, bold, intelligent hip hop music ever made.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd of course, we lost some of our brothers along the way, [but] we\u2019re still representing for them and they\u2019re still representing themselves through the series,\u201d Esco continued. \u201cIt\u2019s a celebration of a great impact, a standard that they set that we could never forget because it keeps us aiming higher.<\/p>\n \u201cThis series is to encourage [and] inspire hip hop and remind us all [of] the pureness of hip hop. I hope that we all can do this together.\u201d<\/p>\n Light-Years<\/em> is also the culmination of a legendary and long-running partnership between Nas and DJ Premier, who have made countless hip-hop classics together over the years, from Illmatic<\/em> standouts \u201cN.Y. State of Mind\u201d and \u201cRepresent\u201d to \u201cNas is Like\u201d and \u201c2nd Childhood.\u201d<\/p>\n Rumors of the pair joining forces for a full-length album swirled for years until they finally confirmed plans for a project last year along with releasing the lead single \u201cDefine My Name.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Nas recently revealed that in addition to new material, Light-Years<\/em> will include a handful of older songs<\/a> that he and Premo recorded when they first discussed making an album together.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m going to say at least two of those ideas happened on this album,\u201d he told Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cWe didn\u2019t get a chance to do \u2019em when we were talking about \u2019em, but we finally got a chance to put those recordings together this year.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cI can\u2019t wait for people to finally hear it. I don\u2019t know about anybody else, but for me and him, it was personally a long time coming for us to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n