BGOL Music Class 5/27: Nas' 'N.Y. State of Mind'

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Yeah yeah, aiyyo black it's time word Word, it's time nigga?
Yeah, it's time man alright nigga, begin
Yeah, straight out the fuckin' dungeons of rap
Where fake niggaz don't make it back
I don't know how to start this shit, yo, now

Straight out the fucking dungeons of rap
Where fake niggas don't make it back
I don't know how to start this shit, yo

[Verse 1]
Rappers, I monkey flip em with the funky rhythm
I be kicking, musician, inflictin' composition
Of pain I'm like Scarface sniffin cocaine
Holding an M-16, see with the pen I'm extreme, now
Bullet holes left in my peepholes, I'm suited up in street clothes
Hand me a nine and I'll defeat foes
Y'all know my steelo with or without the airplay
I keep some E&J, sitting bent up in the stairway
Or either on the corner betting Grants with the cee-lo champs
Laughing at baseheads trying to sell some broken amps
G-packs get off quick, forever niggas talk shit
Reminiscing about the last time the Task Force flipped
Niggas be running through the block shootin'
Time to start the revolution, catch a body, head for Houston
Once they caught us off-guard, the Mac-10 was in the grass and
I ran like a cheetah with thoughts of an assassin
Pick the Mac up, told brothers, "Back up," the Mac spit
Lead was hitting niggas, one ran, I made him backflip
Heard a few chicks scream, my arm shook, couldn't look
Gave another squeeze, heard it click, "yo, my shit is stuck"
Try to cock it, it wouldn't shoot, now I'm in danger
Finally pulled it back and saw 3 bullets caught up in the chamber
So now I'm jetting to the building lobby
And it was filled with children probably couldn't see as high as I be
(So what you saying?) It's like the game ain't the same
Got younger niggas pulling the triggers, bringing fame to their name
And claim some corners, crews without guns are goners
In broad daylight, stickup kids: they run up on us
45's and gauges, Macs, in fact
Same niggas will catch a back-to-back, snatching your cracks in black
There was a snitch on the block getting niggas knocked
So hold your stash 'til the coke price drop
I know this crackhead who said she's got to smoke nice rock
And if it's good, she'll bring you customers in measuring pots
But yo, you gotta slide on a vacation, inside information
Keeps large niggas erasin' and their wives basin'
It drops deep as it does in my breath
I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death
Beyond the walls of intelligence, life is defined
I think of crime when I'm in a New York state of mind

[Hook]
New York state of mind

[Verse 2]
Be having dreams that I'm a gangsta; drinking Moets, holding Tecs,
Making sure the cash came correct, then I stepped
Investments in stocks, sewing up the blocks to sell rocks
Winning gunfights with mega-cops
But just a nigga walking with his finger on the trigger
Make enough figures until my pockets get bigger
I ain't the type of brother made for you to start testin'
Give me a Smith and Wesson, I have niggas undressin'
Thinking of cash flow, buddah and shelter
Whenever frustrated, I'm a hijacked Delta
In the P.J.'s, my blend tape plays, bullets are strays
Young bitches is grazed, each block is like a maze
Full of black rats trapped, plus the Island is packed
From what I hear in all the stories when my peoples come back, black
I'm living where the nights is jet-black
The fiends fight to get crack I just max, I dream I can sit back
And lamp like Capone, with drug scripts sewn
Or the legal luxury life, rings flooded with stones, homes
I got so many rhymes I don't think I'm too sane
Life is parallel to Hell but I must maintain
And be prosperous, though we live dangerous, cops could just
Arrest me, blaming us, we're held like hostages
It's only right that I was born to use mics
And the stuff that I write is even tougher than dykes
I'm taking rappers to a new plateau, through rap slow
My rhymin' is a vitamin held without a capsule
The smooth criminal on beat breaks
Never put me in your box if your shit eats tapes
The city never sleeps, full of villains and creeps
That's where I learned to do my hustle had to scuffle with freaks
I'm an addict for sneakers, 20's of buddah and bitches with beepers
In the streets I can greet ya, about blunts I teach ya
Inhale deep like the words of my breath
I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death
I lay puzzle as I backtrack to earlier times
Nothing's equivalent to the New York state of mind
 
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No track better sums up Nas' ability to spin dense, dazzlingly lucid verse. "N.Y. State of Mind" is no anthem or ode to the city; it's a detailed narrative about a Gotham gunfight, delivered in a nearly 60-bar run that Nas later broke up for the song. "He did the whole first verse in one take," recalled DJ Premier, who produced the track. "He stopped and said, 'Does that sound cool?' And we were all like, 'Oh, my God.' "
 
Nas Did “N.Y. State of Mind” In One Take

What’s crazy about “New York State of Mind” isn’t just that it’s Nas’ best song ever, what’s crazy is how many tries it took for a young Nas to get it just right.

“He did that in one take,” explained to DJ Premier, when we spoke to him last year for "DJ Premier Tells All." According to Nas, the original verse was close to 60 bars which he wrote in the studio that day.

“If you listen to ‘N.Y. State of Mind’” continued Premier. “You’ll hear him going, ‘I don’t know how to start this shit,’ because he literally just wrote it. Before he started the verse, I was signaling him going, ‘One, two, three,’ and he just goes in.”
 
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"N.Y. State of Mind" ranks #74 on About.com's Top 100 Rap Songs.

Rolling Stone magazine placed the song on its list of "The 50 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs of All Time."

Marc L. Hill of PopMatters describes "N.Y. State of Mind" as a standout track on Illmatic claiming that it "provides as clear a depiction of ghetto life as a Gordon Parks photograph or a Langston Hughes poem."

The song is also one of a few rap songs to be featured in the Norton Anthology of African American Literature.

It is featured on Nas' 2007 greatest hits album as the only non-single song in the album, and on the 1999 compilation Best of D&D Studios, Vol. 1. Steve 'Flash' Juon of RapReviews.com states:

"[Illmatic] was to be an album steeped in the rich traditions of hip-hop history, mixed with the most advanced verbal styles and fat beats that could be put on wax. And if it couldn't be set off any more right already, the DJ Premier produced "N.Y. State of Mind" was designed to knock you right off your feet. Primo's knack for finding the illest piano loops and matching them to pounding beats was perfected in this track, and paired with a Rakim sample on the chorus that provided the mental link for an analogy most rap heads had already made by now: Nas was the NEW Rakim on the block."
 
No track better sums up Nas' ability to spin dense, dazzlingly lucid verse. "N.Y. State of Mind" is no anthem or ode to the city; it's a detailed narrative about a Gotham gunfight, delivered in a nearly 60-bar run that Nas later broke up for the song. "He did the whole first verse in one take," recalled DJ Premier, who produced the track. "He stopped and said, 'Does that sound cool?' And we were all like, 'Oh, my God.' "
:yes::lol::dance:
 
No track better sums up Nas' ability to spin dense, dazzlingly lucid verse. "N.Y. State of Mind" is no anthem or ode to the city; it's a detailed narrative about a Gotham gunfight, delivered in a nearly 60-bar run that Nas later broke up for the song. "He did the whole first verse in one take," recalled DJ Premier, who produced the track. "He stopped and said, 'Does that sound cool?' And we were all like, 'Oh, my God.' "

#history
 
Memory Lane is another that really painted a vivid picture of NYC for me as someone who had never been there. That was an incredible record too
 
No track better sums up Nas' ability to spin dense, dazzlingly lucid verse. "N.Y. State of Mind" is no anthem or ode to the city; it's a detailed narrative about a Gotham gunfight, delivered in a nearly 60-bar run that Nas later broke up for the song. "He did the whole first verse in one take," recalled DJ Premier, who produced the track. "He stopped and said, 'Does that sound cool?' And we were all like, 'Oh, my God.' "

Nas Did “N.Y. State of Mind” In One Take

What’s crazy about “New York State of Mind” isn’t just that it’s Nas’ best song ever, what’s crazy is how many tries it took for a young Nas to get it just right.

“He did that in one take,” explained to DJ Premier, when we spoke to him last year for "DJ Premier Tells All." According to Nas, the original verse was close to 60 bars which he wrote in the studio that day.

“If you listen to ‘N.Y. State of Mind’” continued Premier. “You’ll hear him going, ‘I don’t know how to start this shit,’ because he literally just wrote it. Before he started the verse, I was signaling him going, ‘One, two, three,’ and he just goes in.”
Respect

Memory Lane is another that really painted a vivid picture of NYC for me as someone who had never been there. That was an incredible record too

Yeah that's my song too
 
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