Today, On April 15th 1999, Nas dropped the Music Video for one of his best singles of his career “Hate Me Now†featuring Puff Daddy. The video was shot by Hype Williams, and even though it was a big hit for fans it stirred up a heated controversy. In the video it features Nas playing as Jesus Christ and being crucified on the cross as well as Puff Daddy playing another criminal being crucified. Later that day, conflict was started when the video premiered on MTV’s “TRL†and was being broadcasted all over the country. Puff Daddy being a Catholic, he asked to have his image taken off the video for the broadcasting and unfortunately it was not done and was shown all over the U.S. on television. After is was shown and done with, Puff Daddy being furious and upset that his request was not fulfilled, he rushed into Nas’s manager’s, Steve Stoute’s, office and started attacking him while bodyguards trying to separate them, Puff Daddy managed to strike Nas’s manager with a champagne bottle on his head. Nas explains what happened and the idea for why the video was shot in that way:
“There’s a play in New York where a Black man played Jesus, and caught a lot of flak. I think, even the mayor at the time, Giuliani, was against it. So my thing was I wanted to be crucified like Jesus in the video, to get back at all those people that don’t want to see a Black man doing his thing. Me and Puff got hammered to the cross, but after Puff expressed his religious beliefs and spoke to his pastor, he wasn’t ready to take that stance, so it was really my idea anyway, so we took his part out. For some reason, I think Steve Stoute let it fly with Puffy still being crucified to the cross, so there was that fight at the office, where Puff jumped on Steve or some s*it like that. Both of them were friends of mine, so I squashed the whole thing, and it’s all in the past. Just growing pains. We were all growing up. That brings back a lot of memories. Even when I throw it on onstage now, it still kills.â€
At the end of the day, the music video was very creative and that song will be one of the best done by Nas and Puff Daddy.