Despite little to no promo outside of the internet, it will be officially revealed tomorrow by Soundscan that Nas’ Untitled album sold approximately 113,000 units. I’m not going to place “in its first week” at the end of that sentence, because how this industry has chosen to center their support (or lack of) around the strength in first week sales is just ridiculous.Yes, Def Jam, even though you didn’t work hard to get Nas the airplay or video play he deserved –just like you failed to do last time– Nasir still managed to pull it off. And would you look at that: unlike these ringtone rappers who bag paid-for airplay and a #1 hit on the charts, Nas can move over 100,000 copies in the first week. Now that’s what you call a following.

Now that Hov has washed his hands of his Deaf Jam duties, I wonder who LL is going to blame now. Why? Forget hip-hop; IDJ is the new R&B label. Rihanna got a re-release of her album after dropping a million and one singles, Ne-Yo is on album three, they’re still vigorously pushing The Dream even though his album was a flop, they’re working on a new artist named Karina Passian, etc etc. In short, what a joke this label has turned out to be. We knew L.A Reid was a bad idea from the jump.

Hiphopspy never cares how many units a artist is moving these days. But NAS is a top 5 all time rapper that we will follow till the end.

Nas has inked a one-year partnership with athletic apparel company Fila, Billboard reports.Fila will offer reciprocal financial support for Nas’ print and TV ad campaign as well as his upcoming tour in support of his untitled album, due July 15 via Def Jam. In return, the MC will wear Fila products and co-create an apparel line that draws from fashions of the late ’80s.

“My best friend Will and I loved Fila,” Nas tells Billboard. “It represented prestige and everything that was cool to us. When Will passed, we buried him in a black Fila sweat suit, so doing a deal with them has a lot of significance for me.”

According to Fila president John Epstein, it was a natural match. “One of my executives spotted Nas shopping in our Manhattan store and struck up a conversation with him,” Epstein says. “Nas isn’t interested in selling out. He’s interested in being true, and that fits with our brand.”

After stirring up more controversy during the 50th annual Grammy Awards, it appears Nas and Def Jam may be closer to an actual release date for his Nigger album.”It’s coming out April 22,” says Nas. Rumors have been spreading about the album since Nas announced the title during a concert in October of 2007. Proposed release dates have included December 2007, and also February 2008. A single entitled, “What It Is” was leaked, but Nas later stated that the song would not be included on the album. While the reaction to the album’s title has been mixed, and we at hiphopspy yawn at this promo stunt, Nas remained optimistic, despite all of the delays.