Nas surprised fans on Monday (Aug. 10) by announcing that he's dropping some music with producer Hit-Boy next week. He has yet to reveal if the release will be a single or full album.

"I've been trying to do this with this man for years," Nas says of Hit-Boy in a clip uploaded to social media. "We've got the time, that alignment."

If the release is an album, it will be his 13th, following 2018's Nasir. Whatever the new music may be, it's coming on August 21. See the announcement below

Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones was born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City on September 14, 1973. His father, Olu Dara (born Charles Jones III), is a jazz and blues musician from Mississippi. His mother, Fannie Ann (née Little; died 2002) was a U.S. Postal Service worker from North Carolina.

He has a brother, Jabari Fret, who raps under the name Jungle and is a member of hip hop group Bravehearts. His father adopted the name "Olu Dara" from the Yoruba people. "Nasir" is an Arabic name meaning "helper and protector", while "bin" means "son of" in Arabic.

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In 1994, Nas's debut album, Illmatic, was released. It featured production from Large Professor, Pete Rock, Q-Tip, LES, and DJ Premier, as well as guest appearances from Nas's friend AZ and his father Olu Dara. The album spawned several singles, including "The World Is Yours", "It Ain't Hard to Tell", and "One Love".

Shaheem Reid of MTV News called Illmatic "the first classic LP" of 1994. In 1994, Nas also recorded the song "One on One" for the soundtrack to the film Street Fighter. In his book To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic, William Jelani Cobb writes of Nas's impact at the time.

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