Rap Is Rebellion: An Interview with AZ
We speak to the legendary rapper about a changing New York and his new album, Doe or Die III.
AZ can remember a time where entire sections of his Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood were still populated by drug dealers. Today many of those same corners have been replaced by boutique coffee shops where yuppie influencers film themselves dining out. Near where he used to see The Notorious B.I.G. (who cameoed alongside him in Jay-Z’s “Dead Presidents” video) loitering around, there’s now a Whole Foods Market.
In a rare phone interview, the 54-year-old rap veteran born Anthony Cruz explained this forever-shifting landscape in New York City:.“Everything is just an illusion: here today, gone tomorrow,” he says. “The tides are constantly changing. Places can become unrecognizable, and people you never thought you’d lose suddenly disappear. I guess I miss the days [before gentrification]… back when the New York streets still had that edge to them. It was more exciting back then, because everyone wasn’t recording on their iPhones.”
The passing of time is at the very core of AZ’s new album, Doe or Die III, which is one of the year’s surprising rap highlights due to the way its lead rapper grapples with getting older, while revisiting familiar dance steps in a manner that’s fresh rather than staid. ““Still Jackie” continues the storytelling of “Ho Happy Jackie” with a similar, lilting, Sunday afternoon soul groove. However, the familiar female voices, who are repeating a motif from the original Doe or Die, are now much more matriarchal, one of them joking: “AZ, you know he’s my childhood crush!” Familiar yet weathered, there’s a refreshing self-awareness that AZ is no longer a young man, and this makes Doe or Die III a warm, relatable listen.
On the velvet-smooth highlight “No Need For Lactose”—a reference to a bar on 1995’s “Uncut Raw” and also a technique for cooking crack—a dejected AZ raps about how “what was once a playground is now just a place to pee.” He also yearns for a return to the days when the Big Apple subways still felt “spooky.”
These observations nail the crushing disappointment of returning to a home that’s been compromised by capitalism, and subsequently made unrecognizable. The fascination with overcoming dark generational cycles, and connecting the concrete hustle to some sort of spiritual realm, also represents a satisfying throughline all the way to his 1994 guest verse on Nas’s “Life’s A Bitch”—an eternally sage boom-bap anthem, where old-soul AZ steals the show with a dazzling verse that debates the limitations of actuality and what really happens after we “expire and turn to vapors.”
Raised in Brooklyn, AZ tells me his fascination with words started at a young age. He liked how smart the block’s elders looked, sitting on their stoops reading the New York Times every morning. Before he was riding bikes, he was reading the daily broadsheets cover-to-cover, his vocabulary rapidly expanding in the process. With a slightly husky voice and a head shot-precise use of inner rhyming multis, AZ the rapper almost instantly sounded like Frank Vincent with a Kool G Rap flow. Many—including this author—consider his 1995 debut, Doe or Die, an enduring classic.
However, I also believe what made AZ rather unique among his mafioso rap peers was all the philosophical lyrical musings about looming disease outbreaks and Mayor Giuliani being part of the illuminati. AZ was among the first street rappers to talk frequently about ideas like spiritual elevation and meditation on wax, which meant a golden era AZ song was just as likely to reference shootouts as it was being on “a higher plane than the Hebrews.” This prescient eye and an embrace of out-there concepts only sharpened with criminally underrated 1998 follow up, Pieces Of A Man, particularly via the nihilistic and the RZA-produced “Whatever Happened (The Birth).”
This is a song where AZ channels the energy of the rebellious slave leader Nat Turner (more on this later), and plunges down to murky horrorcore depths. Credit should also go to the 2005 deep cut, “Bedtime Story.” This was a staple on my teenage iPod and a far jollier rap song where AZ cleverly turned all his East vs West run-ins into a Disneyfied, Peter Pan-esque fable for his child son.
Across a 30-plus-year career, AZ has had notable flirtations with mainstream success thanks to being part of the Dr. Dre-led, platinum-selling Black Goodfellas of a supergroup, The Firm; embracing an R&B sound with minor hits like the simmering “Sugar Hill”; and also popping up as a guest on D’Angelo’s coldest ever remix.
But it’s also fair to say that his steely raps have never really been the most marketable thing in the world, either. While Nas (whose Mass Appeal label is releasing Doe or Die III) leveled up with raucous Diddy-guested singles and a rising celebrity profile, AZ always seemed more preoccupied with making things more gutter sonically; an uneasy passenger within the major label system.
Today, he tells me he’s happy to be independent and no longer connected to a major label. And, on the new album, he repeatedly toasts to never becoming an industry “slave.” All these career lessons are on full display across Doe or Die III, with AZ’s trademark alliteration-heavy passages and slightly irritated snarl both intact despite the advancing years. “Uniqueness” sees AZ trading bars with a heartbroken, howling Bobby Womack-like soul singer, unsure whether to do a prosecco clink to better days, or give a nearby enemy a death stare.
“I rhyme for the streets/Never those who line up their peeps” is the song’s anti-snitching rallying cry—and also displays classic AZ bar structure, where verbs are used like joists to hold up and support the punchlines. This same song celebrates AZ’s sobriety. Often rap sequels can feel like retreading old steps and just a chance to scrape more money out of a calcified IP. Yet AZ moving on from a do or die mindset to being a sober, high-functioning adult, feels like genuine growth.
Yes, the new album has a few dips, but for the most part it’s a breezy return to form for a Don who has actually made it to brighter pastures. Further proof that being 50-plus only sharpens your pen. By having a near-billionaire like Nas as an executive producer, Doe or Die III has also enjoyed a charged-up marketing campaign across the last month or so. This has included a high-profile appearance alongside Esco on Jimmy Fallon, where they performed the new song “No Surprises” with The Roots.
Their duets over the years have often been imbued with a Versace suit-wearing, Cuban-smoking vibe that can be engrossing, but also cloud efforts to fully absorb the underlying messages. From “Mo Money Mo Murder” to “The Essence,” AZ welcomes my suggestion that all these generational team-ups are proof that it’s about time we finally got a full-length collaborative LP between the pair. One where AZ and Nas are back-to-back on the cover like Lethal Weapon.
“The culture needs it!” AZ said hopefully. “A Nas and AZ album is what the people want. I want it, too, so hopefully it happens. It is like red wine; the best rappers only get better with age.” AZ is somewhat of an enigma compared to a lot of his more podcast-hosting, outspoken golden era rap peers. He tends to create from the shadows and remain humble despite his cult fame. Many of my New York friends tell me stories of seeing him around the city doing everyday shit.
Still, an elusiveness remains during our interview: my phone conversation with AZ doesn’t quite hit 30 minutes due to him having a stacked day of podcast interviews, disappearing just before I could ask him about D’Angelo’s aura. His mystery remains. Regardless, we had an illuminating conversation, touching on subjects including the enduring qualities of Sosa from Scarface, surviving the so-called East vs. West beef, and the concept of redemption.
The interview has been lightly condensed for clarity.
The original “Ho Happy Jackie” might have the most enchanting, analogue-era charm of any boom-bap beat I’ve ever heard. What made you want to revisit this material on Doe or Die III? And, where do you think Jackie would be in 2026?
