(AllHipHop News) Hip-Hop legend Nas has played down his apparent Doja Cat diss on the new song “Ultra Black,” insisting he only used her as a reference because it fit the rhyme. Nas caused a stir on social media earlier this month when he dropped the track, the first single from his new album King’s Disease, because he was seemingly calling out Doja for past allegations of racism, which she has denied. “We goin’ ultra Black, unapologetically Black/The opposite of Doja Cat, Michael Blackson Black,” he spits on the tune, which also name drops comedian Michael Blackson. The “Say So” star, the daughter of white painter Deborah Elizabeth Sawyer and South African actor/producer Dumisani Dlamini, recently brushed off the perceived criticism in a video on TikTok after she was caught participating in racist chatrooms. Now Nas has cleared the air, explaining he meant no disrespect by the lyric. “I just was really saying a rhyme that rhymed with ‘Ultra Black’,” he told Los Angeles radio station Power 106 FM. “I didn’t even think of it, you know what I’m saying? It’s all love. It was just like, ‘Michael Blackson, Black’. “It’s bars, it’s lines. We play with words. The song is fun. It’s about having a good time.” Prior to the rap veteran’s lyric explanation, Doja Cat announced she would soon be releasing a song called “N.A.S.” – although she claimed it wasn’t in response to the rap controversy because she had been planning its launch for a while. Adding that the track title is an acronym, she told fans in an Instagram Live chat the timing is “funny.” “It’s kinda nice (how it worked out)… because that (title was planned) was before the fact,” she said. “If you know what I’m talking about, then you know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, you don’t.” 

Who could have predicted 2020 would include a brewing beef between Nas and Doja Cat?