Nas has inked an untraditional one-year partnership with athletic apparel company Fila, according to Reuters.

As a part of the deal, the company will provide Nas financial support for print and TV ad campaigns, as well as his tour in support of his upcoming untitled album, once titled Nigger. What will Nas do, you ask? He will wear Fila products and co-create an apparel line that draws from fashions of the late '80s, says reports.

"My best friend Will and I loved Fila," Nas told Reuters. "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, the deal went down after an executive spotted Nas in one of their New York stores shopping.

"One of my executives spotted Nas shopping in our Manhattan store and struck up a conversation with him," said Fila president John Epstein. "Nas isn't interested in selling out. He's interested in being true, and that fits with our brand."

Although Fila was worried at first, due to the controversial content of Nas' upcoming album, but after talking to some teenagers, they changed their mind quick.

"I had some trepidation, and then I started talking to 16- to 20-year-old kids in focus groups," Epstein said. "They looked at me like I was crazy for not understanding his message of positive change. Nas is relevant to his followers and I don't have to understand it as long as they do."

As for Nas, he must like Fila a lot because in his own words, he doesn't "need any of their marketing."

"From Jay-Z to 50 Cent to Kanye (West), I've been around longer than all of them, and I don't need any of their marketing," Nas says. "The people are my marketing, and that puts me in a class by myself."