Nas’s 2020 album King’s Disease won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Album. The victory gave the veteran Queens rapper his first Grammy after decades of critical acclaim and major influence on hip-hop.
Released on August 21, 2020, King’s Disease was Nas’s twelfth studio album. It was executive produced by Hit-Boy, whose polished production helped give the project a contemporary sound while leaving room for Nas’s detailed storytelling and reflective writing. The album followed Nasir, which had received a more mixed critical response.
King’s Disease won at the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards, held in 2021. The album’s win is sometimes confused with later entries in the series: King’s Disease II arrived in 2021, while King’s Disease III followed in 2022. Neither sequel was the album that earned this first Grammy.
The record also features artists including Hit-Boy, Big Sean, Anderson .Paak, Lil Durk and Fivio Foreign. Freddie Gibbs, Big Sean and Lil Wayne are plausible distractors because each is a prominent rapper with Grammy-recognized work, but Nas is the answer here.