Thought you guys might like this - its from tinymixtapes.com. I wonder what thrashynobbacunt thinks of this. Almost enough to make him stop teaching music at the local middle school and come out of semi-retirement. ; Headline: Nas Pays Neptunes $2 Million for a Beat, Hungry People in Africa So we've all splurged on a purchase or two before, right? Maybe you paid a little too much for that really kickass piece of nose jewelry because the barbell with the emerald in it was just the right color to enhance your eyes. Or perhaps you bid a little too high on that guitar on Ebay, the one that looks just like the one that the guy in that one band plays. I'll admit to once buying a pound of coffee for $30 because I just had to know what $30 a pound coffee tasted like and, fuck it, I was having a bad week. It tasted pretty good, FYI. Not that it's any of YB. But when it comes to art, is there really such a thing as splurging? Shouldn't the artist do whatever it takes to create whatever it is that they have wrapped up inside themselves that's just itching to get out? Even if it costs the artist a sizable amount of cash? For an answer to that question, look no further than the recent shenanigans of that lovable NYC hip-hopper Nas. Nasty Nas has been hard at work on his next album, allegedly called Nasdaq Dow Jones, and has been searching high and low for the right beats to compliment his mad rhymes. The word on the street has it that Nas got into a bidding war with Puffity Duffity Daddy over what is supposed to be the Holy Grail of beats, a beat by uber-producers the Neptunes. The final bid? $2 million smackers. Nas paid $2 million dollars for a drum track. But it's all about the art, right? Busta Rhymes, a man noted for understatement, had this to say about the beat: "Those drums man, Those drums are fire! If Nas is gonna rap to this beat, it's going to be over. This will be the biggest hit in the history of hip-hop!" The question now is what this moment could mean in the grand scheme of hip-hop. Is this the zenith of the Neptunes' career? Could this be the long heralded end of Nas' tumultuous career? If the song is a colossal failure, P. Diddy will have dodged a very large bullet. Not that he hasn't before. Either way, these events are the makings of a great segment for Michael Ian Black or Mo Rocca to riff on in the inevitable I Love the '00s