- 6 minutes ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00:28Transcription by ESO. Translation by —
00:00:59Transcription by ESO. Translation by —
00:01:29Transcription by ESO. Translation by —
00:01:58Transcription by —
00:02:00Illmatic was a new beginning of rap.
00:02:03It was like living a hustler's life through poetry.
00:02:10That was a genius at work.
00:02:141994 classic, Illmatic, that he's prophetic.
00:02:17He had the courage to tell the truth about the dark side of black existence in America.
00:02:24Illmatic is one of those transformative moments in hip-hop.
00:02:28A hundred years from now, that title is just going to stand out for one of the strongest pillars in
00:02:34hip-hop, period.
00:02:35What he was able to do lyrically, completely shift the climate of how the MC was supposed to rhyme.
00:02:44It was so honest, and it was so truthful that it's never going to not be one of the best
00:02:51albums of all time.
00:02:54When I made Illmatic, I was trying to make the perfect album.
00:02:58It comes from the days of Wild Style.
00:03:00I was trying to make you experience my life.
00:03:03I wanted you to look at hip-hop differently.
00:03:07I wanted you to feel that hip-hop is changing and becoming something more real.
00:03:12I gave you what the streets felt like, what it sounded like, tasted like, smelled like, all in that album.
00:03:19And I tried to capture it like no one else could.
00:03:56Going to a concert, I think to myself, wow, this is what I do for a living.
00:04:05I chose this, and then it happened, and now this is what I do on a regular.
00:04:14You know, being from Queens, that's as good as it gets right there.
00:04:21Begin it.
00:04:23Oh!
00:04:34My musical journey ain't start with me.
00:04:37Y'all come from a long line of musicians and artists.
00:04:41It's in my blood.
00:04:45What I am today is an extension of what they were then.
00:04:52You can trace my artistic roots all the way through Natchez.
00:04:59Natchez, Mississippi.
00:05:23My ancestral name is Oludara.
00:05:32It means God is good.
00:05:36I was born in America, a place called Natchez, Mississippi.
00:05:40I swam the river.
00:05:44During the heart of segregation, the Klan, whatever like that, you can see the burning of the crosses at all
00:05:53times.
00:05:55There were musicians all over the place, you know, on my father's side.
00:05:59He and my grandfather, they had a group called the Melodiers.
00:06:01They traveled all around America.
00:06:04But the family's been like this.
00:06:06There were musicians, artists, teachers, you know, sharecroppers, farmers, hoes, prostitutes.
00:06:15But they all had a high grade of how they dealt with it.
00:06:18It was never like some low squaloring stuff, but it was always, they had a whole type of hold'em.
00:06:26Whatever they did, we always did it on the top, make it dignified.
00:06:33I did four years in the Navy.
00:06:35I was discharged in New York City.
00:06:37That's when I met Naz's mother.
00:06:40So I stayed a couple of days too long, ran out of money, and I got stranded here.
00:06:47And at the same time, along came Naz and his brother.
00:06:53It was tough for the mother, me, for the whole family then.
00:06:57What I started to do is start going back and forth in Europe so I can have some kind of
00:07:01money.
00:07:02And she moved to Queensbridge, you know.
00:07:05And I was worried, I was really worried, because I knew it was going to be rough out there for
00:07:09her and the kids, you know.
00:07:48In the 70s, you had mothers and fathers.
00:07:51In the 80s, you had a lot of single mothers.
00:07:52And in the 90s, you had people being raised by their grandmothers.
00:07:56Historically speaking, you've got to keep in mind, the GI Bill was a building in which persons had access to
00:08:01education, credit,
00:08:02to gain access to houses so you could live in suburbs away from the city.
00:08:07So black folk receive very little of the GI Bill money in terms of housing, only 2.1%.
00:08:13That's why you could create a white middle class with black folk gaining no access to it.
00:08:18And then they create these housing projects that go all the way up to pack folk in like sardines.
00:08:23Down with hovels, down with disease, down with crime, down with firecraft.
00:08:28Let in the sun, let in the sky.
00:08:31A new day is dawning, a new life, a new America.
00:08:35Thank you, Mayor LaGlodio.
00:08:39Historically, they were built for working class families no matter what color.
00:08:44But because the color line is so thick in America, once black folk made their way from the south into
00:08:51the cities
00:08:51and began to, in significant numbers, fill up the projects, you got white flight.
00:08:57And that white flight resulted in a withdrawal of money and wealth from the city.
00:09:15You know, I'll tell you, Queensbridge, to me, it looked messed up.
00:09:19It looked like a buried diamond.
00:09:24I had a chance to have a childhood for at least a little bit, you know, and then, you know,
00:09:31I had to, I felt like I had to become a man early to deal with my environment.
00:09:40So I saw the difference early on with type of parents I came from.
00:09:44Good people, hard workers.
00:09:47We had a color television, we had VCR, you know, we had a carpet.
00:09:52We had nice things in our places compared to some of our other friends who had nothing,
00:09:56who ate, who ate hot dogs for dinner, who ate, who had no furniture, you know, was living bad.
00:10:04Like, we didn't really lack food.
00:10:05My mom was a great cook.
00:10:07Everybody wanted to come to that house.
00:10:09Miss Joan was cooking, I'm over there.
00:10:10She had a great spirit.
00:10:12She didn't talk with curse words.
00:10:13She didn't talk street stuff.
00:10:15You understand?
00:10:16She was, she was not like that.
00:10:18We needed stuff.
00:10:19She said, I don't want y'all to go out there and do it, find another way to get it.
00:10:22I'll get you.
00:10:23My father had a library in the crib.
00:10:26We had, like, a wall unit.
00:10:27It was a library.
00:10:29We had all kinds of books.
00:10:30Everything from the Book of the Dead.
00:10:32Egyptian books about King Tut.
00:10:34Psychology of the Modern Man.
00:10:35Malcolm X.
00:10:36Jung Zou.
00:10:37Instant facts about the world.
00:10:39History of Chinese philosophy.
00:10:41It came before Columbus by Ivan Van Souten.
00:10:43Aesop's Fables.
00:10:44Raffle centricity.
00:10:45Endowed the King.
00:10:46From Superman to Man by J.A. Rogers.
00:10:48The Bible, Proverbs, trials and tribulations of ghetto life.
00:10:52I found that helped him a lot.
00:10:54My pop had been all over the world in the Navy and then traveling through his music.
00:10:59So he had a lot of stories to tell me and my brother about places outside the block,
00:11:06outside the neighborhood, outside New York, outside America.
00:11:10Man, I'm a poor man.
00:11:14So there'd be a xylophone made of wood, trumpets, guitars, maracas.
00:11:20They were toys to me, man.
00:11:22While pops would leave, we'd just be banging on those things.
00:11:26You know what I'm saying?
00:11:27See, Nas, I thought Nas was going to be a great trumpeter.
00:11:31He would play trumpet every day with drummers outside our building.
00:11:36I took the trumpet away from him.
00:11:37I said, you can't play now because your lip might get messed up.
00:11:40Wait until you're like seven, eight years old when your lip is more mature.
00:11:44He was very, he was furious about that.
00:11:46He loved it.
00:11:47So by the time he got to beat seven, you know, I offered him the horn again.
00:11:51He said, no, I'm into something else.
00:11:54He used to wake me up in the morning with rhymes every day.
00:11:56Like, yo, how'd it sound?
00:11:58How'd it sound?
00:11:58How'd it sound?
00:11:59But since he was waking me up in the morning, I would tell him, yo, yeah, I didn't like that
00:12:04word.
00:12:05You said this.
00:12:06You should have said that.
00:12:06You know what I mean?
00:12:07He used to come back.
00:12:08Wake me up again.
00:12:09Yo, how'd it sound?
00:12:10This is better than that.
00:12:11But I knew he was the best as soon as I ever heard him rhyme.
00:12:17I had a friend, a real friend, William Graham.
00:12:21We called him Will.
00:12:23We used to play around and make music when we was young.
00:12:27Me and Will, we'd make tapes and stuff like that and play them for our friends.
00:12:32We looked forward to getting together and making tapes.
00:12:35Willie lived right upstairs.
00:12:37He was like my surrogate son also.
00:12:39He had another way of looking at the world.
00:12:42And the combination of the two, their minds were like, boom, like an explosion.
00:12:46Meis would go upstairs in his crib and he'd be baking brownies and taping videos.
00:12:50So one time he said it to a girl on the phone.
00:12:53I guess she said, what you doing?
00:12:54He said, just baking brownies and taping videos.
00:12:57And he bust out laughing.
00:13:00You know, it gets to him and it sounded real soft.
00:13:04So every day he'd say to somebody, what you doing?
00:13:06And taping, breaking brownies, taping videos.
00:13:09Like, he'd say this to everybody.
00:13:11It's all I want to hear.
00:13:12He made you laugh.
00:13:14He was all about having a good time.
00:13:16That's how we was.
00:13:17We was like two peas in a pod, you know.
00:13:20And we was working on music all the time.
00:13:23But back then it was like just playing around.
00:13:26And if you want to see a smooth black cabin over.
00:13:30Baby Nova.
00:13:40Back then the vibe was different.
00:13:42The music was, you know, bass, 808s in the music.
00:13:46And people was having a good time.
00:13:49I mean, the style was like fresh.
00:13:51It was colorful.
00:13:53It was rich.
00:13:55They used to have the jams in the park.
00:13:57And one of the DJs was from my block.
00:14:00DJ Hot Day.
00:14:02Hot Day was known throughout the neighborhood for bringing out his equipment.
00:14:07Everybody here that the jam is getting ready to happen.
00:14:09And you see them carrying the equipment to the park.
00:14:11And sometimes I try to help.
00:14:15It was life.
00:14:16It was greatness.
00:14:17It was like so much potential out there.
00:14:19It wasn't until later that I started to see the deterioration and see the effects of what they started to
00:14:28call crack.
00:14:30We're fighting the crusade for a drug-free America on many fronts.
00:14:35The city was about to look crazy.
00:14:38It's sad.
00:14:40And it wasn't just a gangster thing.
00:14:43Any and everybody made money off crack.
00:14:47It was survival to the fullest.
00:14:51The collapse of the inner city economy has created a new way of life.
00:14:55An economy based on drugs.
00:14:58People that's older than me were more hip to what was happening.
00:15:00They were making money off it.
00:15:02So, you know, it spread everywhere.
00:15:06And I'm just sitting back watching.
00:15:26I wanted to give you that feeling of New York at night time.
00:15:37You know, you look at things like shots going off every night.
00:15:46You're seeing what's happening around you and pregnant ladies trying to smoke crack.
00:15:52It's a $100 billion a year business.
00:15:55Crack-related crime is soaring.
00:15:57Dudes is late night waiting to rob you.
00:16:01And you're just maneuvering your way through that.
00:16:05And then the crazy cops coming through.
00:16:07Because they have to be crazy running after somebody in that neighborhood at night.
00:16:11The atmosphere was lit.
00:16:13So now I'm jetting to the building lobby.
00:16:15And it was full of children probably couldn't see as high as I be.
00:16:18It's like the game ain't the same.
00:16:21Got younger niggas pulling the triggers.
00:16:22Bringing fame to their name.
00:16:24And playing some corners.
00:16:25Cruiser.
00:16:44To survive here with a family at that time was hell.
00:16:48Believe me.
00:16:49Especially if you didn't have any help.
00:16:50And we had no help.
00:16:59Yeah, my parents had reached like a final breaking point.
00:17:02You know, where it was it.
00:17:04My pop just kneeled down to me and gave me that one-on-one.
00:17:08I'm sure he said, you know, what he had to say to my brother too.
00:17:11When he came and talked to me, he gave me that, you're the man of the house speech now.
00:17:14I'm not going to be around now speech.
00:17:17One day they had a crazy fight.
00:17:19And my father never came back.
00:17:21And I used to look out the window.
00:17:23And my mom told me he was never coming back to the house.
00:17:26She said he can't come in if he do knock on the door.
00:17:28And I'm there and she ain't there, don't let him in.
00:17:32And that shit just, um, that shit fucked me up in the mind a little bit.
00:17:37Because I was so young, my mom has never dealt with me as a kid.
00:17:40She always talked to me as if I was her age or I was smart enough to know anything that's
00:17:45going on.
00:17:46So when she said that shit, you know, I just knew it was real.
00:17:50I'm like, fuck, I just kept looking for him out the window.
00:17:54But he never came back, man, you know what I mean?
00:17:58He moved around Harlem, you know, somewhere else.
00:18:02And I'd visit him there.
00:18:05My mom never spoke anything bad about my father.
00:18:08My mom felt that, you know, she had been done wrong, I guess.
00:18:14You know, she was a hard worker who took care of all of us, including my father sometimes.
00:18:19You know, he wasn't always working.
00:18:21She was the one who provided for all of us.
00:18:24My father had a lot of talent.
00:18:26We got the talent and, um, stuff from him.
00:18:29I think that's where, you know, the talent came from his side and, you know, the intelligence.
00:18:36But the smarts.
00:18:38And then my mom's was so smart, man.
00:18:40Like, I don't even think, my mom's is dead and my father's alive.
00:18:44And I don't really want my father to really fucking even, um, damn, I love you, dad.
00:18:50But, yo, my mom's, I wish she was here to be, like, praised as much as he is for Nas's
00:18:55life, especially for Nas.
00:18:57Anything to do with Nas, yo.
00:18:59My mother is the one that, you know what I mean?
00:19:01Without her, we'd be no nothing.
00:19:02We'd have been gone.
00:19:11I know there's times when my mom be crying or sad or she's just moments where she be hugging us
00:19:21when we're little
00:19:21and just talking about how things are going to be all right and all of that.
00:19:24But those were great times because we had a beautiful home inside that neighborhood.
00:19:31Our home was right for the most part.
00:19:35And we had a lot of love, you know.
00:19:37So she was just really positive and happy.
00:19:43You know, she laughed.
00:19:44We laughed together a lot.
00:19:48She really just wanted the best for me and my brother.
00:20:06I used to be going this way trying to go to school and shit and see all of that.
00:20:11Early in the morning, somebody would get shot, all kinds of shit.
00:20:14It was less police, so shit was real.
00:20:19I had to go to junior high school, 204.
00:20:21That shit was like Rikers Island.
00:20:23That shit was like jail.
00:20:24It was junior high school.
00:20:31When I found out in New York, they were not raised like we were raised down the South,
00:20:34nurturing, you know, with your own people, raising you.
00:20:38He had never experienced any love like that before.
00:20:43And I went over there to enroll them in school.
00:20:46It was almost like enrolling them into hell.
00:20:50It was shocking to me.
00:20:52I felt very bad to see that my father was raised in a nurturing school system.
00:20:56I was raised in a nurturing school system.
00:20:59And here come my kids.
00:21:00I have to have kids in New York City, and they're into this.
00:21:05I did like school in the beginning.
00:21:09I only remember good teachers in elementary school and junior high school a little bit.
00:21:14There was Miss Procone.
00:21:16Well, Nas was in a bright class in first and second grade.
00:21:20And I remember we did a project.
00:21:22The children had to make a face, their face, on a mask-sized form.
00:21:27So I was hanging them up, and then I stepped back to look at them, and I saw Nasir's face.
00:21:35And he wasn't happy that day for some reason.
00:21:39And he had captured himself perfectly.
00:21:44And I thought, wow, this kid can express his feelings.
00:21:52They tried to put me into, like, a slow class in elementary school, and my mom raised hell and got
00:21:58me out of there.
00:22:00I still had dreams.
00:22:02Like, I wondered what it would be like if I was in art and design or some other school that,
00:22:08you know,
00:22:09that really would push some of my talents, you know, that I thought I had.
00:22:13But when you grow up in an environment where the taxpayers are not making a lot of money,
00:22:22then they don't have the funding for schools.
00:22:24And when the schools don't have any money, you get a no-money education.
00:22:30And you wind up getting people who's not motivated and start looking for other ways, faster ways.
00:22:39I would just stop paying attention.
00:22:41I would just daydream.
00:22:43And at junior high school, I got kicked out and put into another junior high school where I really didn't
00:22:48care anymore.
00:22:50So by the time it was time for high school, it was like, I mean, grades was terrible, and I
00:22:55didn't care.
00:23:00So I found a assistant principal and a math teacher, and they told me, say,
00:23:05your kids don't belong here.
00:23:07This will destroy them.
00:23:08They don't care.
00:23:10They were old enough then.
00:23:12They were men to me, because I felt I was a man at the age, 13, 14, or whatever.
00:23:16I said, I'll tell you what you do.
00:23:19Go work.
00:23:20Make you some money.
00:23:21This is America.
00:23:22Quit school if you want to save your own life.
00:23:26Develop your craft, or whatever you want to do, and I'll back you.
00:23:30They smile.
00:23:31I got a call from my mother and my sisters.
00:23:34Everybody, how dare you?
00:23:35How could you do it, you know?
00:23:37I wouldn't have felt right the rest of my life if I'd let them just stay in this school and
00:23:42keep being beat down
00:23:44and teachers not really having any love for the kids and stuff like that.
00:23:53Yeah, yeah.
00:23:54He told me if they're not teaching me nothing, then don't go and try and figure out life on my
00:23:59own.
00:23:59And I'm smarter than the teachers anyway.
00:24:03And they were just there to hold us back.
00:24:05He said the whole school system was just holding black men back, black little boys back.
00:24:12So he told us don't, you know, read our own books and, you know, teach ourselves what's going on.
00:24:18And, you know, he knew, I think he knew that we was going to be entrepreneurs.
00:24:21So he told us that we didn't need school.
00:24:24And my mother didn't agree with that shit, but it worked for us, yeah.
00:24:29You know, my mom's biggest fear was us not doing school.
00:24:33And at the end of the day, I didn't want to hurt her.
00:24:36My friends, you know, all of them were in the game.
00:24:39I didn't want to do that full time.
00:24:41I didn't want to do that at all, really.
00:24:44And I really didn't have to.
00:24:46I planned to be something, like really something.
00:24:50You know, I was just really in the music, writing, whatever, just anything around arts.
00:24:56And I just kept telling myself, this can't be my career, this other thing.
00:25:01It can't.
00:25:02I had a passion for creating things.
00:25:05So that was going to be my out.
00:25:13We came here tonight to get started, to co-act, ill, or get retarded.
00:25:27Back in the days, Roxette Chanté was getting a name as this big rapper in the neighborhood.
00:25:35And she came in my building one time, and she heard us in the hallway trying to rap.
00:25:40And Chanté said, look, you know, I want y'all to come perform with me.
00:25:45There was like some Queensbridge Park jam that was going to happen that we heard about, and she wanted to
00:25:49bring us on as a cruise.
00:25:50Like, oh, wow.
00:25:51So we talking about this every day, working on it.
00:25:53That's when we started to realize we're not really good.
00:25:57So she asked us, you know, spit for her.
00:25:59This is a different time.
00:26:00And we tried to rap, and we started laughing.
00:26:03And because it wasn't coming out right, she didn't laugh.
00:26:05She said, listen, if y'all don't have y'all routine, next time I see y'all, I'm fucking both
00:26:09of y'all up.
00:26:11She's older than us and taller than us, and we believed her.
00:26:15Basically around 84, I started sampling at the crib in Queensbridge.
00:26:20Now, the funny thing about me making records, I didn't make records or get into this industry for the money
00:26:26or anything else.
00:26:27If I was making a beat in the window and it was blasting out, and somebody was walking through 12th
00:26:32Street,
00:26:32if they didn't stop and do a two-step or something, I would make a new beat.
00:26:36Ladies and gentlemen, we got MC Shane and Molly Marle in the house tonight.
00:26:41They just came from off tour, and they want to tell you a little story about where they come from.
00:26:451985, maybe I'm 11, maybe I'm 12.
00:26:49My man comes to get me, yo, there's this new song by MC Shane.
00:26:52He's like, yo, he got a song called The Bridge about the neighborhood.
00:26:56The bridge, the bridge, the bridge, the bridge, the bridge.
00:26:59The bridge, the bridge, the bridge, the bridge.
00:27:00Which was never meant to be a record, that's crazy.
00:27:02It was meant to be intermission music for Queensbridge Day.
00:27:06But the tape went around Queensbridge, and hey, it became a Queensbridge hit.
00:27:12And the rest is history.
00:27:14You love to hear the story again and again of how it all got started way back when.
00:27:19When I heard that record, I just stopped everything I was doing.
00:27:22It was like, oh, shit.
00:27:27You automatically knew it was a smash.
00:27:29You know, the pride was crazy.
00:27:32You know, we had an anthem.
00:27:33It was on the radio.
00:27:35People knew.
00:27:36Yeah, I'm from Queensbridge.
00:27:37I couldn't believe they lived in this neighborhood with us, you know what I'm saying?
00:27:40So that was amazing to me.
00:27:43Then you say, there goes Shan.
00:27:44There goes Marley in this car.
00:27:46You meet people and tell them where you're from.
00:27:48Most people never heard of this place.
00:27:50That song changed everything.
00:27:54I go down south.
00:27:56I'm a Shan fan and everything.
00:27:57I'm a fan of everybody else, but I'm really good.
00:28:00I'm really feeling good about my neighborhood and everything.
00:28:02I get back.
00:28:03The day I get back, the kids is talking about the South Bronx record.
00:28:09And I'm like, what?
00:28:10And it was like, yo, this is record.
00:28:11They dissed Shan and Marley.
00:28:13I'm like, all right.
00:28:15Let me hear it.
00:28:16South Bronx.
00:28:18South, South Bronx.
00:28:19South Bronx.
00:28:20Aw, man, you know, wow, they all they hating, you know what I mean?
00:28:23Aw, they trying to be like Shan and Marley.
00:28:25But it was also raw that he was just going South Bronx.
00:28:30South, South Bronx.
00:28:31Get it, South Bronx.
00:28:32Aw, the beat is tough.
00:28:34I can't front.
00:28:35So Shan put out Kill That Noise.
00:28:38Rap in any style, all categories.
00:28:41Fresh freestyle, surreal, live stories.
00:28:43Jam is dedicated to you and your boys.
00:28:45And if you knew what I knew, then you'd kill that noise.
00:28:48Kill that noise.
00:28:49Kill that noise.
00:28:52And then the bridge is over came.
00:28:54I said, the bridge is over, the bridge is over.
00:28:57The bridge is over, the bridge is over.
00:28:59Hey, hey, hey.
00:29:02It was, it just, it just silenced everything.
00:29:06It was like, oh, oh, they're not playing.
00:29:10Manhattan keeps on making it.
00:29:11Brooklyn keeps on taking it.
00:29:13Bronx keeps creating it.
00:29:14Queens keeps on faking it.
00:29:16Yeah.
00:29:21Hey.
00:29:23aye.
00:29:23Aye.
00:29:24I was like, it's real.
00:29:26It was a battle.
00:29:27Sham was in that battle.
00:29:29Sham did his thing.
00:29:30KRS-One did his thing.
00:29:31And the morale went down to Queensbridge until the Nas' came out.
00:29:35That was our lives, you know what I mean?
00:29:37That was not only our lives, that was the whole Queensbridge lives, you know what I mean?
00:29:41Then we knew fucking KRS-One just said the bridge is over and all that shit.
00:29:47We was little kids coming up under that shit.
00:29:49Like, you know, the bridge ain't over.
00:29:50We super ill niggas out here.
00:29:52Like, so we had to let the world know how ill we was.
00:29:55Like, when everybody thought in hip-hop that the bridge was over,
00:29:59when you fucking crazy, we was ill.
00:30:07I already knew I had to prepare to block that hate out or to tear that down.
00:30:14And my choice was to tear it down.
00:30:16Represent, represent, represent, represent, represent, represent, represent, represent, represent, represent, represent, represent, represent, represent, represent, represent, represent.
00:30:26Opinion's real, anything can be your last.
00:30:28So burning on the guns are blasted, nigga, jailer.
00:30:31The corners is the hotspot full of criminals.
00:30:34Don't care because Olympic we all share.
00:30:36I don't care.
00:30:38It's better break now before we get the fall powder.
00:30:40How they face off the streets, it's real.
00:30:42Undercomers have a trial taken care of.
00:30:44Disease on the roof, try to...
00:30:46As a kid back then,
00:30:49I felt like every day
00:30:53was one step away from...
00:30:56the end.
00:31:03Me, my man Will, and my man Bo,
00:31:05we went to see Aliens 3.
00:31:09Will never smoked weed.
00:31:11But we thought it was the best thing.
00:31:13Smoking weed just chilled us out.
00:31:16Especially Will, he can...
00:31:17You never know, he's unpredictable.
00:31:19Somebody come around, say the wrong thing,
00:31:21he's on their head.
00:31:23So I felt like if he smoked,
00:31:25he'd be chill.
00:31:28We're watching a movie, and Will's...
00:31:30Let me hit that.
00:31:32And he really hit it.
00:31:33We're like, oh, this is crazy.
00:31:35And when we got back to the block,
00:31:37me and Bo had went to go get some weed,
00:31:40but Will stayed on the block.
00:31:41And I think he was collecting money
00:31:43because we was throwing a barbecue.
00:31:45So everybody that's out there that's hustling,
00:31:47they got to put in too.
00:31:50Somebody thought that he was extorting them,
00:31:52and started yelling and smacked him.
00:31:55He had a big Gucci Link chain with a big Mercedes-Benz medallion.
00:31:59And she popped it.
00:32:00He was already on one.
00:32:02We was lit up for the movie, so he just reacted back.
00:32:05He beat up this girl and shit,
00:32:07and she called her baby father and her boyfriend,
00:32:11her baby father and her brother.
00:32:13And the niggas had stepped to me.
00:32:15I remember I was sitting right here.
00:32:17what's up with Will here?
00:32:17My man ain't never hit no girl in his life.
00:32:19Matter of fact,
00:32:20if a girl got hit out there,
00:32:21they could come get him,
00:32:23and he's stepping to somebody for the girl.
00:32:25It's just like in the heat of a moment,
00:32:28certain violations, you know, you react to them.
00:32:32And that was a first.
00:32:33I was sitting right here and the niggas had stepped to me like, yo, where's Will at, where's
00:32:39Will at?
00:32:39And one nigga was like, you know what I mean, he's like, he's going to do it, you know what
00:32:44I mean?
00:32:44So I knew they wasn't playing, I tried to lie to them, but they was serious, so I told
00:32:49them a super lie, like, yo, he went that way.
00:32:51Then when he came, when Will came, I was like, yo, he was over there where them kids
00:32:55is at.
00:32:55And they saw us, and I was like, Will, they coming now.
00:32:59He said, nigga, I'm not running from nobody.
00:33:01And then when the dude just did this , I looked at him, and he looked at me, and
00:33:07his eyes opened up wide, and I saw the life leave.
00:33:10His eyes stayed in one position, and I was like, oh, shit, he's dead.
00:33:14So I was like, yo, shit, today's the day that everybody's going to die.
00:33:18I thought I was going to die too, and I felt the bullets plucking through my shirt and my
00:33:22pants.
00:33:23One right here in the shoulder up there, it grazed me, took a little meat off, and then
00:33:28one came through my leg from the back and came out right there.
00:33:33Nas came out this building right here.
00:33:35He was talking to a girl in this building.
00:33:37He came out this building right here and walked over there, looked at me on the floor.
00:33:41I said, yo, don't tell mommy.
00:33:43I swear to God.
00:33:44I told that nigga, don't tell mommy.
00:33:45Like, I could strength that shot and somehow spend the night out and come home without my
00:33:50moms knowing I got shot.
00:33:52When I heard the shots, I came, you know, I knew that the shots would happen in the area
00:33:56where we're at.
00:33:57So I went downstairs, and I came outside, and the first person I saw was my bro, was Jungle.
00:34:04He was on the ground.
00:34:07And his eyes were open.
00:34:09And he was good.
00:34:13Then I see my man, and so he wasn't moving.
00:34:29I mean, at that point, it was like we let somebody take one of us out, you know what I
00:34:35mean?
00:34:35Like, we, it's, it's it, man, like, it's, we might as well all go.
00:34:40Nothing mattered no more.
00:34:41We can, whatever.
00:34:46I ain't blaming nobody, but I would have moved, you know what I mean?
00:34:51If my son got shot, all right, I used to tell my mother this shit.
00:34:55Why didn't we move, yo?
00:34:57I had to come outside and look at this block again and all that shit was traumatizing.
00:35:02That shit made me into, like, a crazy person.
00:35:04That shit made me a shooter and all that shit.
00:35:06That shit made me like that.
00:35:07Give me a cigarette, y'all.
00:35:14You know, at that point, even life itself didn't seem too valuable.
00:35:18Somebody else's, mine, nobody seemed valuable at that point.
00:35:24Will was a lot of things to knowledge.
00:35:26He was very creative, just like knowledge was.
00:35:29He was very knowledgeable about a lot of things.
00:35:32They read, basically, they thought basically the same, and they were basically brothers,
00:35:37in a way, you know?
00:35:39So, I noticed his demeanor did change.
00:35:41He got more, uh, maybe cynical about the world, or whatever.
00:35:45He had a little sadness in him, a little hurt.
00:35:49And I could still see that in him sometimes.
00:35:53To me, it made him take life serious, because he was right on the verge of getting that record
00:35:58deal around that time.
00:35:59And it's either you sell drugs and be in the hood forever, or you do this music shit.
00:36:04Once Will died, he did music.
00:36:06We didn't even barely see him no more, because Will was down with what he was trying to do.
00:36:11They was all together trying to do the music shit.
00:36:14After he passed, it was like he was orchestrating things from upstairs.
00:36:22It was around that time, man, we felt it happening.
00:36:26We felt like something good was about to happen.
00:36:32We got introduced to Nas, dude, my homie Joe Fatal, and his boy Melquan.
00:36:38They came to me and said, yo, we got this guy, he wants to make a demo.
00:36:42You know, he has his own money and everything, and he wants to see if you can make a beat
00:36:48for him.
00:36:48And he's like, yeah, I'm up here working with Eric B and Rakim and Coogee Rap and all these
00:36:54big names.
00:36:55And I'm like, damn, you know, this was it.
00:36:59This was where, you know, the hip-hop albums were being made in the studio right here.
00:37:05There's a lot of dudes, a lot of street dudes.
00:37:07I mean, me and Nas being young, 15, 16, and we going inside, and Lars is like, yo, go in
00:37:16the booth.
00:37:17You know, everybody talking, and he just quietly like, yo, go in the booth.
00:37:23Now it's going to booth, he's throwing a beat, and he start rhyming, and everybody get quiet.
00:37:32I was in the Mecca.
00:37:34I was inside the place that everybody wanted to be.
00:37:39Hey, in my mind, this is what I was thinking, right?
00:37:42All right, you wanted to do this?
00:37:45You here now, baby.
00:37:47You here.
00:37:47You here.
00:37:48You here.
00:37:49You here.
00:37:50You here.
00:37:52You here.
00:38:05You here.
00:38:16You here.
00:38:28You here.
00:38:31You here.
00:38:33Who's that.
00:38:34Who's that?
00:38:34Who's that?
00:38:34Who's that?
00:38:35Who's that?
00:38:35Man, that boy nice.
00:38:37God damn, that nigga is old.
00:38:39Man, how old y'all?!
00:38:40It was just like, yo, that's crazy right there.
00:38:43Like, yo, you good?
00:38:46Like, yo, you good, man?
00:38:47I'm excellent with that, man, right there.
00:38:49So we was born from there.
00:38:51Let me formally introduce my boy.
00:38:52This is my man, the rapper Nas, Nancy Nas.
00:38:56You know what I'm saying?
00:38:57I'm a fucking...
00:38:58I started off on my version live with the barbecue.
00:39:02Everybody was just excited.
00:39:03You know, this is something new.
00:39:04This is going to come up and change the game.
00:39:06They're not even going to see you coming.
00:39:07Hey, yo, it's like that's up, that's up, that's up, that's up, that's up, that's up, that's up, that's up,
00:39:14that's up, that's up, that's up, that's up, that's up, that's up, that's up.
00:39:16Nah, and that's all.
00:39:24Oh, shit.
00:40:13Oh, shit.
00:40:28It was one of the illest lines anyone had ever heard an MC say.
00:40:32When I was 12, I went to hell for snuffing Jesus.
00:40:37I mean, I must have rewound that like a hundred times.
00:40:42This main choice album is brilliant, but who's that kid?
00:40:49It almost felt like within a week, everybody wanted to know who that guy was.
00:40:54Naz said the line, when I was 12, I went to hell for snuffing Jesus.
00:40:58And I said, like, who is this guy?
00:41:00You know, it's crazy.
00:41:02I went on a mission to try to find him.
00:41:04I originally met Naz in 92, and Naz was at G-Rap's crib.
00:41:08It wasn't until 93, when I was working on my solo album, that I really got to know Naz.
00:41:13And he came to the studio when I was doing Back to the Grill again.
00:41:15Back to the Grill again, the grill again, back to the grill again.
00:41:19So get up and get down, search and never stand still.
00:41:22So here's the true or false, tell me, if it's factable, you want to kill the clan, shoot the fans
00:41:26out, attractable.
00:41:27Got crazy games so no one can stop me, but ayo, I'm white, I guess my game is hockey.
00:41:31Back to the grill again, the grill again, back to the grill again, the grill again.
00:41:36Listen, keep a tech nine in my dresser.
00:41:39Lyrical professor, keep you under pressure.
00:41:41Mind like a computer, the inserter.
00:41:44Paragraph's a murder, the nightclub flirter.
00:41:46This is Naz, kid, you know how it runs.
00:41:48I'm waving automatic guns at nuns.
00:41:50Sticking up the preachers in the church, I'm a stone crook.
00:41:53Serial killer who works by the phone book.
00:41:56Waving automatic guns at nuns.
00:41:58I never saw those verses as being shock and awe.
00:42:02They weren't just about the words themselves.
00:42:06They were about an emotion and a feeling, so you had to use an example.
00:42:12Like I am so angry at the system that I have to channel that anguish and that frustration
00:42:22into waving automatic guns at nuns.
00:42:25For you, I got a lot to shoot the songs I hear.
00:42:27My rubs are hotter than a prostitute with gonorrhea.
00:42:29On the mic, I live for carol every spill.
00:42:31It's like that jaw, that jaw, kick them in the grill.
00:42:34I get a call from my friend, MC Search, and Search says, I found that kid you're looking
00:42:39for.
00:42:40You know, that kid Nasty Knows from Queensbridge.
00:42:42And he said, not only did I find him, but I got two demos on him.
00:42:46I said to my boss, if you never let me sign anything, just please let me sign this kid.
00:42:52You know?
00:42:53And he said, okay, all right, all right.
00:42:55You know, and that's kind of how it happened.
00:42:59I always wanted to be on Columbia Records.
00:43:02They just seemed like the most serious record label to me.
00:43:05But now I'm invited in.
00:43:08You know what I mean?
00:43:09And I'm like, it's about time y'all recognize, right?
00:43:12And I'm looking at all the history on the walls.
00:43:14I'm kind of looking around the place like, you guys are waiting for me.
00:43:19You know, I'm talking to the walls and the desks and the plaques and the floors and people
00:43:25walk.
00:43:25I'm like, this is, you guys have been setting this up for me.
00:43:30And I'm here.
00:43:30That's how I felt.
00:43:31I'm like, this is home now.
00:43:34He never told me I got the deal.
00:43:36He never said that shit.
00:43:38He just came back with the money.
00:43:40You know what I mean?
00:43:40Like, yo, I got some money.
00:43:42He didn't even tell me how much he had or nothing.
00:43:44He just was like, yo, what you want?
00:43:45Go to Macy's and get it.
00:43:47You know what I mean?
00:43:47He brought me some gas jeans and shit like that.
00:43:51Like, yo, here.
00:43:52You want some money?
00:43:53I got you and all that shit.
00:43:54And I didn't even know what he was doing.
00:43:56I didn't know how.
00:43:56I just figured, cool, you got this little bit of money.
00:44:00That's the most money we ever going to have ever.
00:44:04And you know what I mean?
00:44:05This is the end.
00:44:05You're going to do some videos and we good.
00:44:07We back in the hood.
00:44:08And that's the shine that we got.
00:44:10I didn't even know that shit meant the world.
00:44:12You know what I mean?
00:44:13I thought that shit just meant the bridge.
00:44:14Y'all hear the bridge beat.
00:44:16This the anthem right here, yo.
00:44:18Don't get out.
00:44:18That's where you got the front, right?
00:44:20I think.
00:44:20No question.
00:44:21Bridge in the house.
00:44:22True.
00:44:23One, two.
00:44:24Yo, but people, you know what I'm saying?
00:44:26Like, people has definitely been waiting for the album.
00:44:28Why don't you let them know what's going on with that?
00:44:30Yeah, the album getting ready to come out in January.
00:44:33The name of that is Illmatic.
00:44:35You heard live of the barbecue.
00:44:37You heard Back to the Grill again.
00:44:39So now is album time.
00:44:42New York State of Mind was, I knew,
00:44:43it was going to be the first record on the album.
00:44:45I'm bringing you through hell and back.
00:44:47I'm bringing you in.
00:44:48Here it is.
00:44:49This is song number one when you popping that tape.
00:45:03I said, I want to do something that's slow.
00:45:05So I'm already thinking, dog, some walk with me type of joint.
00:45:09Yo, it got to make you do this.
00:45:10And that make you do that.
00:45:12Straight out the fucking dungeons of rap.
00:45:15But fake niggas don't make it back.
00:45:19I don't know how to start this.
00:45:21No.
00:45:23Rappers are lucky, flipping with the funky rhythm.
00:45:25I be kicking.
00:45:26Musician, inflicted composition.
00:45:28Of pain, I'm like Scarface, sniffing cocaine.
00:45:31Holding the M16.
00:45:32See, with the pen, I'm extreme.
00:45:34Now, bullet holes left in my P-close.
00:45:36I'm suited up with street clothes.
00:45:38Hand me a nine and out the P-close.
00:45:40When I wrote the review for Illmatic in The Source magazine,
00:45:43I didn't know that it was going to change hip hop.
00:45:45I only knew that it changed me with one listen.
00:45:48Illmatic's the album for the 90s era where I was growing up.
00:45:52The stories he was telling was something I can relate to.
00:45:54Illmatic will always be number one.
00:45:56Coming from Dallas, Texas, Illmatic was my secret.
00:45:59It was my weapon.
00:46:00It was the steel that sharpened my steel,
00:46:02which set the tone for Badoism and everything else that I would do.
00:46:07In 1994, I was nine years old.
00:46:11I came up in Fayetteville, North Carolina,
00:46:12so a lot of things didn't make it to me.
00:46:14He hit us with life lessons and insight
00:46:16on how to maneuver through this world
00:46:18as just young black men in America.
00:46:29Fab Five Freddy, I'm in the laboratory with my man right here.
00:46:33It's big Nas, son.
00:46:35Illmatic.
00:46:35Illmatic.
00:46:36Illmatic.
00:46:37Illmatic.
00:46:38Illmatic.
00:46:40Nas called me, was like, yo, I got one more slider on the record.
00:46:44Come to the studio, bring all your discs, bring all your beats.
00:46:48I didn't even get a chance to play anything.
00:46:50The first beat that I pulled up was Life's the Bits.
00:46:56We've been doing that.
00:46:59And you know how that go.
00:47:02But my nigga, is it all about just getting money?
00:47:05Is it all about just trying to fly his car?
00:47:07Let's do it.
00:47:08If not, I need you to tell me what it's all about.
00:47:11I'm from Brooklyn.
00:47:12I'm from East New York.
00:47:13And you know where I'm from, the homicide rate is like an all-time high.
00:47:18When I wrote Life's the Bits, another one of my homies just passed.
00:47:22That was like the third one.
00:47:24A lot of brothers was incarcerated.
00:47:26I shot it at one of my homies, and they was like, damn, son.
00:47:29Like, oh, shit.
00:47:31I felt it from the heart.
00:47:32�� facets of power.
00:47:33Richit, lies, and the realism of life and actuality.
00:47:36Fuck who's the baddest?
00:47:36A personal status depends on salary.
00:47:38And my mentality is money orientated.
00:47:41I'm destined to live the dream for all my peeps who never made it.
00:47:43Cuz yeah, we were beginners.
00:47:45And the hood is proper sinners.
00:47:46But something must've got in us.
00:47:47Cuz all of us turn ass sinners.
00:47:49Now some incumbent Orbiting past the United bisogant.
00:47:52Trying to carry on tradition
00:47:54Keeping this rough and vest the street
00:47:55Get a worse of society
00:47:56The simple viseal with the proper
00:47:58Insight together
00:47:59Even though we know somehow
00:48:01We all gotta go
00:48:02As long as we're leaving
00:48:03Leaving, we'll be leaving
00:48:04With some kind of dope soul
00:48:05To the day we inspire
00:48:06A ton of rapists
00:48:07Me and my capers
00:48:08A piece of weird tack
00:48:09When he black us
00:48:10Keep in it
00:48:11Real, chill
00:48:12Take some pictures
00:48:15The rhyme flow from an MC perspective
00:48:17That the nigga put down was crazy
00:48:19But when you say
00:48:21I'm destined to live the dream
00:48:22For all my peeps
00:48:23Who never made it
00:48:25Nestled within
00:48:26All of that street
00:48:28Grimy shit
00:48:29The nigga talking
00:48:29Is hope
00:48:31I woke up early
00:48:32On my born date
00:48:3320 years of prison
00:48:34Essence of Adam
00:48:35As you lead my life
00:48:36I'm a physical friend
00:48:38Celebrating cause I made it
00:48:39My quarter to life
00:48:40That God created
00:48:41And I promise
00:48:43This is five days
00:48:44Annual plus
00:48:45Put up the mic and bust
00:48:46That's what I'm bust for
00:48:47My skull
00:48:48Is pain in my brain
00:48:50Money maintain
00:48:51To go against the word
00:48:52Simple in my brain
00:48:53When I was young
00:48:54I used to do my thing
00:48:55Robbin' farming
00:48:56Take the rhymes
00:48:57They jury
00:48:57And make it
00:48:59Tipped to the hood
00:49:00Flashing my quick glashing
00:49:01Got my first piece of ass
00:49:03Just for the gas
00:49:04I was all about
00:49:05Gas in the bucket
00:49:06Niggas I used to run
00:49:07With this bitch
00:49:08And doin' years
00:49:08In the bucket
00:49:09I switched my motto
00:49:10Got to say
00:49:11Fuck your mom
00:49:12With that buck
00:49:12That water bottle
00:49:13Cause I struck the lotto
00:49:15At times I look back
00:49:16Loose crack
00:49:17Produce facts
00:49:17Kipped up
00:49:18Got small pieces
00:49:19Two bad times
00:49:20He'll mad at
00:49:21Keep static
00:49:22For fabric
00:49:23Back on for fabric
00:49:24To crack
00:49:25The whole fabric
00:49:25Your body should be
00:49:26Get a new job
00:49:27Let's go get it out
00:49:29Get a new job
00:49:30Early on my pops told me
00:49:31You know
00:49:32You're gonna be the man
00:49:33In the house
00:49:33I'm out
00:49:34My mom told us
00:49:36You know
00:49:36And he's still your father
00:49:38He still loves you
00:49:39You know
00:49:39All that story
00:49:40And it was like
00:49:42I'm sure I wasn't happy
00:49:43About it
00:49:44But you know
00:49:45To me I always been like
00:49:46That's life
00:49:48You know
00:49:48Keep pushing
00:49:50Life's a bitch
00:49:51And then your job
00:49:52That's why we get high
00:49:53Cause you never know
00:49:54Where you gonna go
00:49:55The track
00:49:57Just had a jazzy feel to it
00:49:58I just felt like
00:49:59I could hear my pop on it
00:50:01I just asked him
00:50:02To play something
00:50:03That reminded him of
00:50:04With me and my brother
00:50:06With kids in the neighborhood
00:50:28I mean that
00:50:29That record is the
00:50:32It's the mindset
00:50:34Of most people today still
00:50:36It's still me
00:50:36It's still who I am
00:50:39As far as
00:50:39When you listen to those words
00:50:42It's sort of like
00:50:43Philosophy in a way
00:50:44You know
00:50:44It's like
00:50:47You know
00:50:48It's talking about life
00:50:55That 19 year old
00:50:57Was
00:50:59The beginnings of me
00:51:00You know
00:51:01It's the beginnings of who I am today
00:51:03And if it wasn't for me
00:51:05And that mindset
00:51:06Then
00:51:08You know
00:51:08People wouldn't know
00:51:09People wouldn't read with me today
00:51:31The vibe of that song
00:51:32Was straight Tony Montana
00:51:34Scarface
00:51:34The world is yours
00:51:36That's what it said
00:51:37On the blimp
00:51:38That was serious
00:51:40In the movie
00:51:41When he saw that
00:51:43It was like a sign
00:51:47I saw this jazz album
00:51:48Ahmad Jamal
00:51:49And I
00:51:50You know
00:51:51Just threw it on
00:51:52One day
00:51:52As I was vacuuming
00:51:53In my room
00:51:54And I heard
00:51:56The loop go by
00:52:01Says when I started
00:52:02Making the drums
00:52:03I was like
00:52:03Let me just put something
00:52:04In there
00:52:05That's kind of like
00:52:06Not just your regular
00:52:07Boom bat
00:52:08But something else
00:52:09Like a
00:52:10Ting ting ting ting
00:52:12That was the first beat
00:52:21And when he heard it
00:52:23I saw him just freeze
00:52:25You know what I'm saying
00:52:26And just
00:52:27You know
00:52:28Just start closing his eyes
00:52:29And getting an idea
00:52:31He came up with the idea
00:52:32Of me singing the hook
00:52:34And I wasn't
00:52:34I wasn't with it
00:52:35He was like
00:52:36Nah
00:52:36I want you to sing it man
00:52:37And he started singing it
00:52:38The way he wanted me to do it
00:52:40And I did it
00:52:41You know what I'm saying
00:52:41Whose world is this
00:52:43The world is yours
00:52:45The world is yours
00:52:46Whose world is yours
00:52:49The world is yours
00:52:50The world is yours
00:52:51The world is mine
00:52:52Whose world is this
00:52:54I said the world is yours
00:52:55The world is yours
00:52:57The world is yours
00:52:57Whose world is this
00:52:58I said God be
00:52:59Watching Gandhi till I'm charged
00:53:01Writing in my book of rhymes
00:53:02Word about the margin
00:53:04The hold of mic I'm thriving
00:53:05Mechanical movement
00:53:06Understandable smooth shit
00:53:08The heroes move with
00:53:09The thief sting
00:53:10Play me at night
00:53:11They won't act right
00:53:12The feet of hip hop
00:53:13They got me strong
00:53:14Like a crackpot
00:53:15The mind activation
00:53:16React like a face
00:53:17And I'm like happy nation
00:53:20Wipe the sweat on my dome
00:53:21Wipe the swim on the streets
00:53:22Swing timbs on my feet
00:53:24Tried for complete
00:53:25Weather cruising in the sixth camp
00:53:27I'm on terror
00:53:28See what he hit call
00:53:29The feet tell me far
00:53:30I keep falling
00:53:31I keep falling
00:53:32But never falling six feet
00:53:33I'm out for presidents
00:53:34To represent these
00:53:35Just about to say what
00:53:36Presidents to represent
00:53:37Just about to say what
00:53:39I'm out for dead presidents
00:53:41Whose world is this
00:53:44Think of the word best described
00:53:46In my life
00:53:47To name my daughter
00:53:47My strength
00:53:49My son the star
00:53:50Will be my resurrection
00:53:51Think of the word best described
00:53:53In my life
00:53:54Will be my daughter
00:53:54Your strength
00:53:55My son the star
00:53:56Will be my resurrection
00:53:57Born in correction
00:54:01I had no idea
00:54:03I would have kids in that order
00:54:05The way I wrote that rhyme
00:54:06And what their sexes would be
00:54:07It's just I spoke that on my first album
00:54:09And that's how life turned out
00:54:11That is just chilling
00:54:16All right peace
00:54:18Peace
00:54:19I was born right here
00:54:27Snacky boy
00:54:29Hey
00:54:31What up
00:54:33What up
00:54:33Oh shit
00:54:35Oh shit
00:54:36What up man
00:54:37What up man
00:54:38What up man
00:54:39Karate cake
00:54:40Looking good
00:54:41Looking good
00:54:43This is the dude here
00:54:44That used to snap on me everyday
00:54:46Looking good
00:54:46If I came outside
00:54:47And my sneakers was fucked up
00:54:49He would send me back upstairs
00:54:50This dude was the best ever
00:54:53The best
00:54:54What up baby
00:54:54Huge family
00:54:55Oh love
00:54:55You already know
00:54:57Yo I could bring cameras
00:54:58Y'all all right with that
00:55:00Just wanna check with y'all
00:55:02To make sure
00:55:02Peace
00:55:03How are you
00:55:06What up baby
00:55:07What up
00:55:08Nigga I'm big as hell
00:55:09Yeah I'm home
00:55:10Ain't a little messiah no more
00:55:12You ain't a little messiah no more
00:55:13You ain't a big messiah now
00:55:14Welcome home my nigga
00:55:16Yeah
00:55:17Yeah
00:55:17What's up now
00:55:18What's going on
00:55:18Yeah y'all
00:55:20Hey y'all
00:55:22Peace
00:55:23Hey peace
00:55:24What up
00:55:27Love you
00:55:28I love you too baby
00:55:30I never saw that
00:55:33I'd be having this day
00:55:34To look back
00:55:35And think about where I come from
00:55:38And made it to where I'm at
00:55:42This was a story that needed to be told
00:55:44This was a story that needed to be told
00:55:45It was already told by MC Shan
00:55:46And Molly Ma
00:55:47Craig G
00:55:49Shantae
00:55:50The juice crew
00:55:50You know what I'm saying
00:55:51It was already
00:55:52It took tragedy
00:55:53It was already told
00:55:55So I was just an extension of that
00:55:57You know what I'm saying
00:55:58They paved this way
00:56:00They made this happen
00:56:01What's up little man
00:56:03Come here
00:56:03Give me a five
00:56:07How you doing
00:56:07What's your name
00:56:09What's your name
00:56:09Noah
00:56:10Noah
00:56:11Nice to meet you
00:56:12Noah
00:56:13Stay good man
00:56:14What's your middle name
00:56:15Nasir
00:56:17Give me five man
00:56:18Yo look
00:56:20Everybody with that name
00:56:21Are kings
00:56:22So we are kings
00:56:23Okay
00:56:24Just know that
00:56:25For the rest of your life
00:56:26Don't ever think anything else
00:56:28Just know that you're a king
00:56:30Alright
00:56:30My man
00:56:32Be good
00:56:35What's up man
00:56:36Give me five
00:56:37Give five
00:56:48I remember
00:56:48I remember
00:56:49Being in Europe
00:56:50And uh
00:56:51Hadn't seen my boys for a long time
00:56:52So I went out to
00:56:54Queensbridge
00:56:54To look for them
00:56:56And a man with a camera
00:56:57A guy I knew
00:56:58He said
00:56:58Hey there's your boys
00:57:00And they come running over
00:57:03They hug me
00:57:04And kiss me
00:57:05And shit
00:57:05And pose for the photograph
00:57:11I just never
00:57:11Forget how they looked
00:57:13Because they had
00:57:14They had changed
00:57:15I had been gone so long
00:57:17But you could just tell
00:57:18They had been
00:57:18They had been released
00:57:19From their mother's arms
00:57:21And they were just out there
00:57:22Just having fun
00:57:24You know
00:57:30Yeah
00:57:30It's Illmatic
00:57:31Yeah
00:57:33When I saw that
00:57:34Illmatic cover
00:57:35I knew exactly
00:57:36Where the photograph came from
00:57:38From the look of the photograph
00:57:39You could just tell
00:57:40That's the way
00:57:41His mind
00:57:42Just opened up
00:57:44To me
00:57:44His mind was saying
00:57:45Wow
00:57:46What a world
00:57:48What a world
00:57:49What a world
00:57:52So
00:57:53You'd have this your background
00:57:55For Illmatic
00:57:58Danny Clinch
00:57:59The photographer
00:58:00When he showed us this picture
00:58:02It just felt like
00:58:03You get a chance
00:58:04To see
00:58:05In the neighborhood
00:58:06In the neighborhood
00:58:07In a larger way
00:58:09One time for your mind
00:58:11One time
00:58:11Yeah whatever
00:58:12One time for your mind
00:58:14One time
00:58:14Yo whatever
00:58:15One time for your mind
00:58:17One time
00:58:17That day was a big day for me
00:58:20Because we had made it
00:58:21We were rolling out with an album
00:58:23We were doing a photo shoot
00:58:24For the album
00:58:26There was no stylist
00:58:27There was no budget
00:58:29For anything
00:58:30Except cameraman
00:58:32To get to that point
00:58:33Is the biggest day
00:58:34In your life
00:58:35So we were celebrating
00:58:50And now I said
00:58:51Come outside yo
00:58:52Camera crew is outside
00:58:55Everybody knew Nas was a rapper
00:58:56You know he had a song out
00:58:58So you know people came outside
00:59:03There's a lot
00:59:03There's a lot of people around
00:59:04That want to kill each other
00:59:05That just got together that day
00:59:08Just for the pictures
00:59:10And shit
00:59:11Girl
00:59:12That was a crazy day in the world
00:59:19Everybody got their turn
00:59:20In Queensbridge
00:59:21For something to happen
00:59:25Some of them people
00:59:26Going to catch murders
00:59:27Some of them people
00:59:28Going to get beat up
00:59:29Some of them people
00:59:29Going to go to jail
00:59:32But all of them people
00:59:33Going to have a story
00:59:39Everything will happen
00:59:40To each individual
00:59:42In that picture
00:59:42One by one
00:59:47He's doing 15 years
00:59:50He's fighting a murder
00:59:56He's doing life
00:59:58Life
00:59:58In prison
00:59:59He just got locked up
01:00:01No bail
01:00:04My man just
01:00:05He just did some
01:00:08Shitload of time
01:00:09In fucking
01:00:10North Carolina
01:00:11Bricks
01:00:12Crazy ass life
01:00:14He'd do a bunch of
01:00:15Fucking time
01:00:16In and out of jail
01:00:19And this shit is real
01:00:21It's the process
01:00:27That's fucked up
01:00:36That's fucked up
01:00:37It's so fucked up
01:00:39Just to see what happened
01:00:40You know what I'm saying?
01:00:41Like it makes me really realize
01:00:43If it wasn't for music
01:00:44You would have told a story
01:00:46About that kid too
01:00:47On the bench
01:00:48If it wasn't for music
01:00:49You would have went
01:00:50Along that line
01:00:50Telling that story
01:00:51Or maybe I wouldn't even
01:00:52Been in that picture
01:00:54That's not what I wanted
01:00:55To see happen to nobody
01:00:57In that picture
01:00:57You know I wanted
01:00:58I wanted the best
01:00:59For my friends
01:01:00You know what I'm saying?
01:01:01So
01:01:02Yeah, it's crazy
01:01:11I still have dreams
01:01:12About being here
01:01:13I still have dreams
01:01:14Like I'm here
01:01:15I don't know what it means
01:01:16I feel like every hood
01:01:18Is haunted by the brothers
01:01:19That walk through there
01:01:20You know the essence
01:01:21Of them are still here
01:01:22It helped
01:01:22It helped put
01:01:24Make this place
01:01:25What it is
01:01:25They kind of like
01:01:26Govern it
01:01:28Spiritually
01:01:28You know what I mean?
01:01:29So
01:01:29You always remember the homies
01:01:31You always remember the ones
01:01:32That meant a lot
01:01:33That died for even
01:01:34This neighborhood
01:01:34That died for
01:01:35For us to be here
01:01:38I feel like a voice
01:01:39For those ones
01:01:40That
01:01:42Passed on
01:01:42You know what I mean?
01:01:44Because
01:01:45I was here
01:01:46This was me
01:01:47This was what it was about
01:01:48For me
01:01:48You know what I'm saying?
01:01:49This was like
01:01:52This was life
01:01:53This was it
01:01:58This was a song right here
01:02:03Goes out to everybody you love
01:02:05And especially
01:02:06All the motherfuckers on lockdown
01:02:09Hold your head
01:02:10Hold your head
01:02:12Hold your head
01:02:13Hold your head
01:02:14Hold your head
01:02:14Hold your head
01:02:23to your city.
01:02:25My hands rock down from Queens.
01:02:28My hands rock down from York City.
01:02:30My hands rock down from York City.
01:02:31The L, the L, the L.
01:02:36The O, the O, the O.
01:02:39This is for real love.
01:02:41M&C, M&C, M&C.
01:02:44If y'all know about love, real love.
01:02:46The E, the E.
01:02:49If y'all know about real love.
01:02:52Say love!
01:02:57Say love!
01:02:58Say love!
01:03:01Say love!
01:03:09Large Professor hit me and told me,
01:03:11yo, you need to link up with Nas,
01:03:13I know you got it.
01:03:15It was Large and Oconelli,
01:03:18and Nas that came out.
01:03:19We had a little set up in Feist's basement.
01:03:24Nas was like, yeah, I just need that shit you do.
01:03:27You know what I'm saying?
01:03:27Like, that mystic shit.
01:03:31I plead him what was to become one love.
01:03:53I find myself getting letters from friends who are locked up all the time.
01:03:59And, you know, me saying what's going on in the free world
01:04:02and him telling me how he's maintaining and asking me questions
01:04:06and us going back and forth, you know, on just keeping his brother's head up.
01:04:10I never heard a record where somebody's writing letters to people.
01:04:14If I did, it was like a love song or it was never from a street perspective.
01:04:19So One Love was about keeping people's head up in locked up situations.
01:04:29Fucking black, no time for looking back, it's done.
01:04:31Plus, congratulations, you know you got a son.
01:04:34I heard he looks like you. Why don't your lady write you?
01:04:36Told her she should visit, that's when she got hyped.
01:04:39I heard he looks like you. Why don't your lady write you?
01:04:43That right there, if you examine those two bars
01:04:45and just look at what happens when we get incarcerated,
01:04:51you know, you're dealing with a young African-American disease almost
01:04:56is incarcerating black men.
01:05:01Not only do you incarcerate them in a physical sense,
01:05:05but you incarcerate, you emasculate them,
01:05:08you incarcerate their manhood, their identity, their spirit.
01:05:13What up, kid? I know shit is rough doing your bit.
01:05:16When the cops came, you should have slid to my crib.
01:05:18Fucking black, no time for looking back, it's done.
01:05:21Plus, congratulations, you know you got a son.
01:05:23I heard he looks like you. Why don't your lady write you?
01:05:26Told her she should visit, that's when she got hyped.
01:05:29Flipping, talking about he acts too rough.
01:05:31He didn't listen, he be ripping while I'm telling him stuff.
01:05:33There's a thing that we say in the hood,
01:05:37yo, she's a good bitch, she gonna bid with you if you get locked.
01:05:40She's not fucking around.
01:05:44She's galvanizing all your people, making sure you getting visits.
01:05:48She's holding you down.
01:05:50But when you're black and you're in America and you're in the hood,
01:05:55no income, hard to find a job, crime all around you,
01:05:59there's a cloud of dysfunction that just hovers over that young sister.
01:06:05So just in that line, I heard he looks like you, why don't your lady write you?
01:06:09Shows how the prison system also destroys, you know, union and love and family.
01:06:21You know what I'm saying?
01:06:22And destroys promise and hope.
01:06:24Not only for the person who's incarcerated,
01:06:26but those people who are attached to them on the outside.
01:07:10One love, one love, one love, one love, one love.
01:07:26Let me hear you say it.
01:07:28One love, one love, one love, one love.
01:07:40Yeah.
01:07:41Rest in peace to my nigga Draws.
01:07:45Rest in peace to ill will forever.
01:07:48Rest in peace to Bar Kip.
01:07:51Represent all my niggas.
01:07:53We will hear for you still.
01:07:55We love you.
01:07:58You thank you.
01:08:02Amen.
01:08:13Amen.
01:08:15Amen.
01:08:16Amen.
01:08:18Amen.
01:08:18Amen.
01:08:19Amen.
01:08:43The hip-hop archive was established at Harvard University to support art, culture, and knowledge
01:08:47of hip-hop and its followers.
01:08:49The Nazir Jones Hip-Hop Fellowship is designed to provide students and artists with the opportunity
01:08:54to demonstrate that education is real power.
01:08:57Can we all just welcome Professor Morgan, Mr. Nazir Jones, and Professor Skip Gates.
01:09:05Everybody I grew up with, no one finished college, no one owns the store, owns a bank.
01:09:14Dudes is doing life.
01:09:16You know, dudes are dead.
01:09:18Dudes are, you know, in the streets, don't know where they're at.
01:09:24You know, so an album comes out during that period, right?
01:09:28Could you imagine being approached by Harvard at that point?
01:09:31It's like, if it's going to be the Nazir Jones Fellowship, it's got to be someone who's been
01:09:37consistently working and building.
01:09:39You want to make a contribution to the world.
01:09:48I said, our friends be in the projects of jail, never Harvard or Yale, years ago.
01:09:56And here we are.
01:09:58So that they realize that this is an art form, this is a contribution to world civilization,
01:10:02being studied at a university like Harvard, being preserved in a hip-hop archive, having
01:10:07fellowships created for the geniuses of the genre, like Naz Jones.
01:10:12I represent my friends that didn't make it.
01:10:14I represent all the guys because they helped me get here.
01:10:17They, just their conversations, just us riding out together as young teenagers.
01:10:23The things they told me, the things that I told them, and we mix it all up, and the things
01:10:29we survived, and the things that we lost.
01:10:31Like, I represent all my guys, you know what I'm saying, that didn't make it here with me.
01:10:37You know what I'm saying?
01:10:38That were there with me from the beginning.
01:10:41I didn't trust anything.
01:10:43I didn't trust anything outside the world that I lived in.
01:10:46I didn't care about politics.
01:10:48I didn't care about America that much.
01:10:50I didn't care that much because I didn't believe that it believed in me.
01:10:54So today, you know, thank God I'm here.
01:10:57I made it through the storm, and this is an amazing honor for myself, and if I may say
01:11:05so, to hip-hop too.
01:11:06Oh, man, give it up.
01:11:07Give it up.
01:11:11A kid dropped out of school, kid from projects in New York, you know what I'm saying?
01:11:19A kid gets, you know, gets recognized.
01:11:22This ain't about just music.
01:11:27I wanted to do Illmatic, to leave my voice, my opinions, my philosophies, my ideas, in music
01:11:35form, in rap form, as something that was proof that I was here.
01:11:59The world is yours.
01:12:04The world is yours.
01:12:09The world is yours.
01:12:15The world is yours.
01:12:28The world is yours.
01:12:31The feeling of hip-hop has got me stuck like a crack pipe.
01:12:34The mind activation react like I'm facing time, like Pappy Mason with pins I'm embracing.
01:12:39Wiped her.
01:12:40Sweat off my dough.
01:12:41Spit the phlegm on the streets.
01:12:42Sway Timbs on my beats.
01:12:43Smits my cypher.
01:12:44Complete weather cruising in a six-cam.
01:12:46I'm on tarot deep.
01:12:47I can't call it.
01:12:48The beats make me fall into sleep.
01:12:50I keep falling.
01:12:51We're never falling six feet deep.
01:12:53I'm out for presidents to represent me.
01:12:55Say what?
01:12:56I'm out for presidents to represent me.
01:12:58Say what?
01:12:58I'm out for dead presidents to represent me.
01:13:01Who's world is this?
01:13:03The world is yours.
01:13:04The world is yours.
01:13:05It's mine.
01:13:06It's mine.
01:13:06Who's world is this?
01:13:08The world is yours.
01:13:09The world is yours.
01:13:10It's mine.
01:13:11It's mine.
01:13:11It's mine.
01:13:12Who's world is this?
01:13:14It's yours.
01:13:16It's mine.
01:13:16It's mine.
01:13:17It's mine.
01:13:17Who's world is this?
01:13:19The world is yours.
01:13:21The world is yours.
01:13:23to my man ill will god bless your life to my peoples throughout queens god bless your life
01:13:28i trick me boxing crazy bitches aiming guns in all my baby pictures beef with housing police
01:13:33release scriptures that's maybe hitlers yet i'm the male money getting stabbed rolling foul
01:13:37the versatile honey sticking wild golden child dwelling in the rotten apple you get tackled
01:13:42a court by the devil's lasso shit is a hassle there's no days for both days we're selling
01:13:47the smoke pays where all the old folks pray to jesus soaking their sins in trays a holy
01:13:52war the odds against knives and slaughter finger the word best describing my life to name my
01:13:56daughter my son to start will be my resurrection born a correction all the wrong shit i did he'll
01:14:01lead in right direction how you live in larger broker charge cards are mediocre you're flipping
01:14:05coca playing spits phase is strict poker it's joy it's mine it's mine whose world is this
01:14:14the world is yours the world is yours
01:14:24y'all the world is yours
01:14:26the world is yours
01:14:27It's mine, it's mine, it's mine, it's mine, it's what all is this?
Comments