Nas Guns for ‘The Streets’ on ‘Lost Tapes Vol. 2′

'Lost Tapes' is one of those Nas albums that shows the superior skills of the iconic Queens rapper through bootlegs and previously unreleased tracks. Now, he's going in for another round and 'Lost Tapes Vol. 2' already has a release date: December 14. For Nas, it's all about clearing his vaults before recording his next solo album for 2011 release.

"I'm unloading records I want the streets to hear," Nas wrote in an email to MTV. "Cleaning out my hard drives. Gonna do this, then start fresh. I'm dropping my solo LP before the summer of 2011. I love the energy the world has been giving me over the last two years. But now it's time to focus on owning the streets again."

Given the strong fan reaction to leaks such as 'Last Real N---- Alive, Part 2' from Green Lantern's most recent mixtape, Nas seems to have a lot of spare verses and some classic boom-bap beats ready to roll. The compilation record should hold those fans over until Nas' next turn, which he has already teased as having an dream production lineup.

"The directions that I'm thinking about going into... it doesn't even matter what producers [produce it], if it's Swizz Beatz, if it's [DJ] Premier, if it's it's Alchemist, Dr. Dre, Kanye West, all of these guys are guys that I love and guys that I've been talking to about getting in on the project," he said to Tim Westwood in July