Nas - One Mic
Album: Stillmatic [5th album]
Recorded: Manhattan, New York
Genre: Hip Hop, East Coast Hip Hop
Album Release: December 18th 2001
Single Release: April 16th 2002 [4th single]
Length: 4.28
Producer: Chucky Thompson & Nas
Vocalist: Nas [age 27]
Label: Columbia
Music Video
Explicit lyrics version
Acapella mixed over the original sample (credit to editbyheaf)
Charts, Streams & Sales
Spotify: Over 26 million
YouTube Music: Over 48 million
About.com's Top 100 Greatest Hip Hop Songs of All Time: #54
Credits
Sample: Phil Collins - In the Air Tonight.
Drums sample: Barry White - I'm Gonna Love You Just A Little Bit More. These drums were also used in tracks by Eric B & Rakim, Eminem, J.Cole, Alicia Keys, Daft Punk, Kool Keith, De La Soul, Mary J Blige and many others
Details
- The track makes good use of quiet-loud dynamics that aren't often found in hip hop.
- Ostensibly, the track is about a battle between two rival street gangs, "mad violence, who I'm gonna body, it's hood politics", like
something from an episode of The Wire, but taken in the context of the
Nas Jay-Z beef that was rampant at the time, it seems to represent that conflict but described using
imagery relatable to the inner-city target audience.
Nas' famous religious iconography sits right alongside the gang war theme 'hoodrats don't abortion your womb, we need more warriors soon.' Nas is calling for more rappers to come 'from the stars, sun and the moon', from the heavens and take up the mantle of real hip hop against those who have sold their soul and gone commercial.
The battle is portrayed as not only Nas vs Jay-Z but real vs fake, and by the references to heaven, good vs evil. Nas is calling on all fans to take up arms and defend the very soul of hip hop against the encroaching forces of the commercial Satan that is represented by Jay-Z.
Of course it's hyperbole, but if you grant Nas artistic license and forget yourself for a minute, it's fun imagining yourself as a soldier on the march to defend hip hop from any and all that would do her harm.
"It was my first meeting with Nas. We just sat and talked about that
situation where you feel you’re gettin' ready to fight or gonna have to
get ready to defend somethin', what’s that record that would calm you
down? We both said it was ‘In The Air Tonight’ [by Phil Collins].
He
mentioned to me that he wanted to make a record where the chorus was
quiet and that verses would rise. So me taking those two
ideas, I just came up with something that was calm and built up a little
bit in the verses and then go back calm for his chorus." (Producer Chucky Thompson talking to HipHopDX)
''One Mic' just gives me the ability, no matter how much ignorant people are mad that I'm exposing or talking about our country, no matter what the language is, I'm talking in a language that the people can hear, I'm not sugar-coating it. So if it scares people and people feel guilty, people feel like they've got to make up excuses to why the world's this way, no matter what they say, like they've got their mic, I've got mine, and that's what that song's about.' (Nas talking to Rolling Stone in 2007)
Artwork
