Nas - The World Is Yours
"Born alone, die alone. No crew to keep my crown or throne."
Album: Illmatic [debut album]
Recorded: New York
Genre: Hip Hop, East Coast Hip Hop
Album Release: April 19th 1994
Single Release: May 31st 1994 [4th single]
Length: 4:50
Producer: Pete Rock
Vocalist: Nas [age 20]
Label: Columbia
Music Video
Audio
Remix (Produced by Q-Tip)
Charts, Streams & Sales
Spotify: Over 185 million
YouTube Music: Over 30 million
Credits
Details
- Practically every individual track from Illmatic could be selected as one Nas' best. The album is an all time classic that defined the crucial mid-'90s period of East Coast hip hop by elevating every aspect of the genre into a coherent whole that encapsulated Queensbidge, New York, circa 1994, forever in history.
New York in the eighties, when Nas was growing up, was much different than today. Crime was rife, and in 1986, 23.9% of the population were living in a poverty that was concentrated in black and latino communities. New York is represented by the media as the big apple, a place of unending opportunity, the city that never sleeps, but Nas describes it as "dwelling in the rotten apple" and when he talks of never sleeping it's "I never sleep cause sleep is the cousin of death", inverting the phrase to mean you can't sleep in New York because if you do it could mean your death.
New York might be a city of unending opportunity for some but for others it's a place of urban decay, social deprivation, drug deals, gang violence, and broken homes.
The irony is that the opportunities afforded to Nas by living in a metropolitan cultural centre have actually paid dividends for him. Growing up so close to Manhattan worked to his advantage despite the grievances he felt towards his childhood stomping ground. His music was discovered. He lived close-by to the best producers in the genre. He had such access to studios, labels and the music industry that Nas is now the one living comfortably. - The producer, Pete Rock, sings the hook.
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