Steve Stoute&#8217;s been in the game for years and is one of the most prominent moguls in the game. His career has spanned for decades and he&#8217;s been involved with some of the biggest rappers in the game such as Jay-Z, <a href="/profile/Nas" class="text-word" target="_blank" >Nas</a> and <a href="/profile/KanyeWest" class="text-word" target="_blank" >Kanye West</a>. He actually managed Nas earlier in his career and was around during the whole Jay-Z/Nas mega beef that occurred. He recently paid a visit, alongside Tone of Trackmasters, to N.O.R.E and DJ EFN&#8217;s &#8220;Drink Champs&#8221; podcast where they got real deep about one of Nas&#8217; &#8220;Ether.&#8221;


Once the topic came up in their conversation, Tone admitted that Jay-Z&#8217;s &#8220;Takeover&#8221; had him nervous for Nas, even going as far as saying he thought &#8220;Nas was done&#8221; after seeing it at the Summer Jam stage and watching him perform it live. However, Steve Stoute chimed in, who was working with Nas on Stillmatic at the time, said &#8220;nervous was an understatement.&#8221; He mentions that around the same time, he and Jay had a budding friendship but he felt betrayed after hearing &#8220;Takeover.&#8221; Regardless, the single itself had Stoute nervous for Nas&#8217; career.
&#8220;I was nervous, I thought Nas&#8217; career was over,&#8221; Stoute said. He admitted that Nas&#8217; personal life was conflicting with his professional life. However, he said he gave Nas&#8217; the beat for &#8220;Ether&#8221; for the sake of him using it for his album but he said Nas wasn&#8217;t feeling it. Around the same time, the two of them weren&#8217;t on speaking terms and Stoute wouldn&#8217;t hear what Nas has been working on for the album until a day before it was sent for mastering.
&#8220;He calls me in, the album is about to go to mastering and I go to the studio and he plays me Ether. It&#8217;s like 2 in morning. And he uses that beat,&#8221; Stoute said, &#8220;The fact that he called me to the studio the night before mastering was because he wanted me to hear, like &#8216;Did i go too far? Is this fucked up?&#8221;
Stoute said despite the fact that he and Nas weren&#8217;t even on good terms at the time, he took off his jacket in the studio and told them they had to fix it. &#8220;This is a mess. If this shit comes out, you&#8217;re career is over,&#8221; Stoute recalled, &#8220;And he made the record. But there was a different version with the same beat that was terrible, it was horrible. And like, it was the proper response for what he was in.&#8221; 


Stoute later applauded the Jay-Z and Nas for coming out of the beef on proper terms without any actual violence occurring. 
You could watch the full interview here and the &#8220;Ether&#8221; story around the 41:30 mark : 
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