AZ Preps 15th Anniversary Reissue of ‘Doe or Die’

Queens MC AZ has announced that he's prepping a reissue of his undeniably classic LP 'Doe or Die' for release on the record's 15th anniversary. In a recent interview with HipHopDX, the 'Rather Unique' rapper revealed that the album will drop on October 10 and feature a slew of remixes and new verses in addition to the album's original content.

"I just wanted to give back to the peoples that been holding me down for 15 years, [and also] just to keep the AZ brand alive," he said. "With so much going on in the hip-hop game, [and] it becoming a hustle, I just wanna keep the name alive, keep the brand alive, keep the 'Doe or Die' alive, ya know."

'Doe or Die' came as a follow-up to AZ's turn on the 'Illmatic' track 'Life's a B----' -- the only guest verse on Nas' legendary first album. It continued that track's mixture of hard boom-bap and jazz. AZ knows it's his masterpiece and part of the widely emulated '90s hip-hop canon.

"That's the roots," he continued. "When you get something from the roots, all this was a part of what was planted. So, you gotta trace the roots and go back. Not to take nothing from hip-hop now, but that's when hip-hop was hip-hop. It was many voices, a lot of different characteristics, and ... it was a beautiful thing back then. It meant something, a whole lot."