Yellow tape on black gates
A voyage down any block in America, the suburbs, sprawling metros or slums, one is reminded of the lasting effects hip-hop culture has had on this nation, specifically through the vision of verses and songs that highlight excellence, vanity, crime, philosophy, street knowledge, fashion, loaded slang and pain. Through the manner of artists who uphold poeticism and storytelling in their music, listeners enter worlds they have and have not yet inhabited, over and over and over again, like a running cycle where time is captured over drum loops and sound effects.
Many have attempted the profession, many bear the fruits of material riches, cars, clothes and different varieties of…(you finish the rhyme), but few will ever be revered by fans or fellow poets like this particular artist who will be discussed below.
Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones, who records under the name Nas, stormed the Queensbridge projects in 1991 with the release of a feature verse on “Live at the Barbeque,” as one documentary notes, and his narrative itch rivals artistic qualities seen in Pulitzer prize-winning novels and enlightening poetry collections.
He’s narrated in the voice of a fetus, he’s rapped letters to inmates, he’s echoed the voices of women, a personified gun, and he’s authored a story backwards.
From this front, many of his songs are full of references to day-to-day survival philosophies, the prose awakens, and special emphasis is placed on the choices in delivery and context, which are all reasons why Nas was honored with the W.E.B. DuBois Medal during a ceremony at Harvard University in 2015, an award Muhammad Ali, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, and Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, have also received.
In this vein, in the same honor of the Harvard established Nasir Jones Fellowship which seeks to uncover “projects from scholars and artists that build on the rich and complex hip-hop tradition,” I thought to myself, ‘why not uncover the rhymes of the honoree, Nas himself!’
It’s only fitting.
But with over one hundred songs and many more verses to choose from, I’ve selected only three songs to breakdown, three that may not be his most popular cuts on playlists, but three that encapsulate the strength of his craft, the wealth of his stamp in the tradition of a culture.
“Live Nigga Rap”
In my opinion, this is the quintessential Nas verse. It’s dense, it’s dark and it’s daring.
The opening four bars compound familiar rhymes “sweet,” “heat,” “teeth,” “deep,” and “meet.” But the magnificence isn’t only about the sound. The prose, too, is layered with interesting uses of slang.
Excerpts from verse 3
Niggas thinkin shit sweet, I carry big heat
Wavy hair chipped teeth, up in this bitch deep
Queens murder clicks meet, yellow tape on black gates
Mediterranean, projects is like Kuwait
For example, he uses the word “sweet,” in context, to affirm his toughness. Things, here, are certainly not “sweet.” And after the references to gun-toting rappers, a usual trope, he reaches for a comparison between project violence in predominantly Black neighborhoods and compares that to the war zone in Kuwait in 1990.
Not only does this verse offer a timestamp to the song, which was released in 1996, the “yellow tape on black gates” line transcends a regular description to pure colorism. These individuals in this narrative are in a hell of their own. And it’s not hard to understand why. With violence related to police brutality, drug cartels, gangs and terrorism, it’s safe to say America has their own dystopias that are much closer to home.
Furthermore, this verse offers philosophies on class in America and the world at large. How poignant is this line: “You just a crumb inside a world where the rich run it!”
Take a breather to acknowledge it. Once heard you can almost hear his mind ticking as he explains the grim outlook.
Nonetheless, he maintains that even in this atmosphere he’s a mathologist, which I think is a sincere reference to the Five-Percent Nation, he’s also an anthropologist, and, this word is made-up, but he’s also a “knowledgist.”
Nas has a habit of making up words like this to fit his rhyme patterns and the second song on this list will talk about that more. What’s important to bear in mind with the song at hand, however, is the need for his character to express toughness as well as wisdom in a less than ideal situation. To “preserve in my dome” not only links the deep throat and swallow lyrics as a reference to oral sex, he’s offering the idea that the world’s darkness is no secret to him, he’s real, not fake like silicone, and his words mean more than the average rap song that fails to dive deeper into complex issues.
Escobar 600, you just a crumb inside a world
Where the rich run it, curriculum of a mathologist
Deep throats, they try to swallow this
Anthropologists, dynasties of great knowledgists
I preserve in my dome, niggas mics is full of silicone
Spot’s blown, guerilla ice on this killer’s life
“U Gotta Love It”
This is my favorite Nas song. The blend of the verse with the melodic instrumentation is…divine.
He begins with a reference to his name and combines it with Nostradamus, the famed seer and alleged predictor of national crises the globe faces in the present.
While the first verse of this track isn’t as frightening as the one above, it’s still a narration of one person’s outlook on the changes he saw in his community during the crack cocaine epidemic and its controversial lasting effects on the drug war.
Check out the verse in print first and then hear the delivery in the song below. What may seem as aggressive is portrayed in a smooth and confident tone.
Verse 1
Nastradamus, skama lit, know when I rep
Flow when I’m set, I got the chips to make a lotus my whip
Gold on my neck was once a code of respect
For high rollers and vets
Now it’s loads of baguettes, prefer a mac-10 over a tec
No matter sober or wet, I smack soldiers, cadets
Trees that might eject my hype back
Famous phrase “Nigga light that”
Hoes you fuck, ask you where your ice at, dunn
It’s all about playboys, when we was young
Can only get tongue, then finally we can cum
Busting in hoes, guzzling 4's
Crack blitz, ’86, you turn hustling pro
From bottles, to seven in your hand
To fake Pepsi’s to get to the crack, unscrew the can
Gleam blunted, seeing 100’s, stacks of boy with a lean on it
We got it if the fiends want it
The whole block singing the same theme “Don it”
Fuck it, too many crabs in a bucket
If it’s ice work, I’m gonna truck it
You gotta love it, you gotta love it
This song is loaded with ideas. The most clever lines, however, stand-out due to revelatory honesty. He describes the crack epidemic in the 1980s as a “blitz” that turned ordinary people into ruthless dealers and users.
Since a blitz is defined as a sudden attack, in just one word we get the image of the drug storming the hood, but not just the hood, but everywhere else, too. Cleverly, to avoid arrest, as one Genius annotation says, people placed their drugs hidden in compromised soda cans.
Another set of lines to highlight in the first verse is the idea that gold chains and money was once the height of street fame. Having the nicest jewelry and clothes is a status symbol all over the world, from ancient times to modern times, but in a deformed society having the best guns is where the power rests.
Flow when I’m set, I got the chips to make a lotus my whip
Gold on my neck was once a code of respect
For high rollers and vets
Now it’s loads of baguettes, prefer a mac-10 over a tec
No matter sober or wet, I smack soldiers, cadets
The power of the “s” sound is the highlight of the rhythm in the second verse of “U Gotta Love It.” Listen to the song or read along and pronounce the “s” sound with Nas and you’ll notice the patterns quickly.
As for the meaning, there’s a ton here to dissect as well. He begins by stating his distaste for some people’s tendency to chase wealthy men of fame, furthering this consciousness of a dark and twisted world where people need to keep one eye open at all times.
Excerpts from Verse 2
Some girls get too emotional, fanatic extremist
Compulsive, with malice incentives, the foulest of bitches
Hunger my riches, her childish wishes
Be suspicious of those sleeping with fishes, them hoes
Conspicuous and it shows, tricking this dough
The next piece to the narrative is also enlightening. As he continues the rhyme he boasts of his confidence, which perhaps isn’t a surprise based on the lyrics already discussed, but this bravado, in his words, is said to be on behalf of people who are in prison.
For different reasons, and one can argue this for days, Black and Latino people are incarcerated at far higher rates in America than Whites. The breakdown and disconnect is not only complicated, it is also crippling. For someone like Nas to speak of this is not surprising, since rappers have continuously done so, but in no form or fashion is he proud of the circumstance. I think the point of this was to emphasize the disproportionate rate of incarceration, however inhumane it may or may not be, and what leads to the hostility.
I got that confident soul, for those locked in a hole
Inhumane, living hostile opposed
To living on the streets, proper from my top to my toes
Aeropostale my clothes, Vernon niggas in suburbans with liquor
Preposterous foes, finicky foul niggas
See niggas and blacks, there goes a loud difference
But the seemingly confusing ideas he later offers begins at the line above which makes a proposed distinction between “niggas” and “Blacks.” In fact, at least in song, Nas says there’s a big difference between the two, and this is not an unheard of concept.
There are many references in popular culture to the “good kind” of Black people. Chris Rock famously did so and there are modern statements on the issue as well.
Interestingly enough, Nas echoes some prototypical American Dream statements in the second verse that sound like the same ideas that promote people who pull themselves up by their bootstraps to “defeat the system.”
Miserable cats, hunger paining
Get off your ass, stop complaining
My crew be in Montego Bay margariting
While you home, waiting your arraignment
This thug life you claimed it, I make millions from entertainment
Now back in the hood, certain cats they wanna kill me
They ice grill me, but on the low, niggas feel me
You gotta love it, you gotta love it
To “margarate,” another made-up word, is to enjoy the leisures of life. The sip of a fancy drink on the beach is to proclaim that his success, which was rising away from the miserable people in the slums who complain, came from hard-work and determination. Now that he makes millions from his art, he speaks of the jealousy his peers may have of him, which shows that even wealth can’t take one completely away from their origins.
“Get Down”
The final set of lines from Nas to discuss relate to the idea of destiny. While the narrative is probably fictional, Nas tells the story of an older man who meets him and tells him to put away his guns and liquor because one false move can land him in prison. Sure enough, as he does this, police cars enter the street during the discussion and he’s saved just before he’s caught and likely arrested…or maybe worse.
Verse 1
Worldwide on the thorough side of things
Livest kings, some died, one guy, one time
One day grabs me, as I’m about to blast heat
40-side of Vernon
I turned while he asked me
What you up to them cops gon’ bust you
I was a teen drunk off brew
Stumbled I wondered
If God sent him cause two squad cars entered the block
And looked at us
I ain’t flinch when they watched
I took it upstairs, the bathroom mirror, brushed my hair
Staring at a young disciple
I almost gave my life to what the dice do
Yeah man, throwing them bones
What’s interesting here is the religious undertones. “God’s Son,” the album this song was placed on, featured other songs that deals with faith, mortality and perspective. After the passing of his mother early in 2002, the album was directly influenced by the significant circumstances Nas faced at the time. Perhaps the death of his mother caused him to be more reflective, and, in turn, write a poem that deals with the possibility that one mistake in his youth could have cost him his chance at success.
In the end, my goal here was to informally show my interpretations of lyrics. By no means is this a perfect description, as I am not in the artist’s head, for one, and I cannot unravel every choice made in the prose. However, I think it is important to realize that even the most simplistic of songs, of any genre honestly, carry their own levels of meaning that listeners should enjoy as well as understand.
The construction of any art has its own merit, and the celebration of this is something we ought to promote.
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