Nas isn’t flooding the streets with music just yet, but by releasing a string of songs and verses, he’s making a case for why hip-hop isn’t dead. While his verse on Nelly Furtado’s upcoming single previewed today, he also talked about his championship collaboration with Nicki Minaj.

“It was crazy ’cause Nicki is out there doing it,” Nas recently told XXLMag.com about working with Minaj on her song, “Champions.” “She’s like the only female doing it. You got some new ones out her doing it—Azealia Banks, Iggy Azalea—you got them. But since we don’t hear much from Eve, Kim and Foxy these days, nobody can’t front, Nicki is representing. To be on her album, that shit was crazy.

“Champions,” which appears on Minaj’s Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, also features Drake and Young Jeezy.

“That’s a recipe of a masterpiece,” he said. “I thought it was a perfect record and I think Nicki killed that shit.”

Aside from his guest verses, Nas has been busy working on his new album Life is Good. Last week he dropped the video for “The Don” and a new song, “Daughters,” on which he candidly talked about his relationship with his teenage child.

Today, Nelly Furtado offered a peak at her song, “Something,” which includes a verse from Nas. The song, which is from Furtado’s forthcoming album The Spirit Indestructible. Nas’s tenth studio album, Life Is Good, is set to drop July 17. –E. Parker, CBS Local