The two years leading up to Nas' follow-up, It Was Written (1996), brought another wave of enormous anticipation. The ambitious rapper, who had begun working closely with industry heavyweight Steve Stoute, responded with a significantly different approach than he had taken with Illmatic: where that album had been a straightforward hip-hop album with few pop concessions, the largely Trackmaster-produced It Was Written made numerous concessions to the pop-crossover market, most notably on the two hit singles, "Street Dreams" and "If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)." These singles -- both of which drew from well-known songs, Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" and and Kurtis Blow's "If I Ruled the World," respectively -- broadened Nas' appeal greatly and awarded him MTV-sanctioned crossover success.
After 2Pac interpreted lines directed to the Notorious B.I.G. on Nas's 1996 album It Was Written to be aimed towards him, he attacked Nas on the track Against All Odds from The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory. Nas himself later admitted he was brought to tears when he heard the diss because he idolized 2Pac. The two later met in Central Park before the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards and ended their feud. Read more about Nas here.
