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Snorting cocaine could be meaning his father was not only doing lines, but was addicted. Drugs have bankrupt and ruined families before, which indicates he was poor growing up in the streets and as we all know he was doing illegal activities, or as he puts it in the last verse:
Rhymes crafting come from crime interaction
“Aura” is the ever-changing flow of life energy around one’s body
Diadora is an Italian football, tennis, running, cycling, rugby, athletic shoe, clothing, and fashion accessory manufacturer with locations in Italy, the United States, and Hong Kong.
Used as an example of fancy materials he has around him. Now his aura is Diadora: You can feel/sense the richness around him.
From this:
To this.
What a Change huh?
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A reference to his very popular line and classic song “It Ain´t Hard to Tell”.
You could take it literally and say he wouldn´t have been able to sneak the uzi in. More importanly if that song or line didn´t exist would have robbed us all of a timeless song. Here is the jacket, it is quite badass must I say.
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Nas is saying that although he gets seven figures it won’t take much for his nine to spit. Pesos are worth much less than the dollar. So he’s telling you to bet he will shoot his gun if any minor offense comes up.
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Apparently after not speaking to Nas for a year, Carmen Byrant (mother of his daughter and ex-fiance´, who cheated on him with Jay Z) heard “Ether” and “Supa ugly”, called Nas, and said she loved him.
After all, Jay Z was pretty disrespectful towards not only Nas, but to Carmen and Destiny Jones as well:
I came in your Bentley backseat, skeeted in your Jeep
Left condoms on your baby seat
Jay Z received a call from his mother letting him know, “That went too far.” Jay returned to the station the day after and said:
I apologize. I felt like I didn’t think about women’s feelings or [Nas' former girlfriend’s] feelings, or even my mom. It was really like, ‘Let me meet your level of disrespect with this level of disrespect.
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With this song and Life is Good, Nas wanted to bring back some of the old-school hip-hop with break beats, scratching and no hooks. Therefore, with the disc jokey that introduces him, Nas are applying just these elements.
It´s a fantastically appropriate primer of a spoken-word introduction:
Queensbridge, y'all ready to see Nasty Nas? Uh-huh, they ready…
Provided by disc jockey Big Kap, a couple guitar hits and a drum break usher Nas into the proceedings, and he proceeds to spit for three minutes, with only occasional horn stabs and record-scratch interludes (but no chorus) to interrupt him. Nas owns the beat like the 20-year vet that he is.
There’s an obvious precedent here—2003′s thunderous “Made You Look” (also produced by Salaam Remi), which “Nasty” calls back to with its raw drum beat, four bars of acapella rhyming, and even a shotgun blast or two. “Nasty” was even ranked number one on the list Top 100 rap songs of 2011 here on Rap Genius.
In an interview with LargeUp Salaam revealed where he got the intro from:
Even the intro on “Nasty,” was going through tapes of stuff that was going on in the 90’s. It’s the Illmatic release party, the beginning of “Nasty,” and that’s Big Kap talking, saying “ya’ll ready for Nas?” I have a bunch of records that I’ll end up using made from tapes of stuff that’s never really been on record. I was going through them and No I.D was like why don’t you just make that the intro for the song, so I was like, Whoah. Dope.
Or basketball, football, takin' papes in poker MC Serch (Ft. Chubb Rock, Nas & Tone) – Back to the Grill
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Since hip-hop is predominately blacks performing he should stick to hockey or other activities that are for whites. Even though it has become acceptable for whites to rap it was a taboo back then. You can’t really blame people; remember this was before Eminem had his breakthrough and the only white rapper people knew of was Vanilla Ice.
Ironically it’s the opposite now, the majority listening to rap is white teenagers that have the white male privilege: much like the great white hope in boxing back in the days. Consciously or unconsciously, either you want someone of the same “race” to succeed or just relate to that person because of it. Here is an interesting interview with Talib Kweli speaking about the white male privilege:
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Life Is Good was indeed a thoughtful/introspective/personal album and a trip inside Nas´s life/mind. From his financial anxiety in “Reach out”, to his relationship and divorce with Kelis in “Bye Bye Baby” or him reminiscing of old times in “No Introduction”.
So it's back to the game, round up a lil' gang
Set it up to stick ya manye but he stick you first AZ (Ft. Little Brother) – Rise and Fall
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Notice that he sees the regular 9-5 jobs as slavery and that he only wants to be famous, to be creative you have to have fun and have that inner motivation, could be a reason why he failed so he’s going back to selling drugs. For most people in ghetto there are only two options out of it, either as a ballplayer or a rapper.
His last resort is to set-up his friend with a robbery to get cash instead. However, his homie ended up doing that very same thing to him.
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He´s one of a kind or amazing like if all races were combined into one man and that he´s as incredible as the 99 summer jam performance line up. Which included artist like Nas, Jay Z, Dmx, Redman, Method Man, Q tip, Swizz Beats, Busta Rhymes, Eve, Missy Elliott, Ja Rule and more which at the time was considered an incredible line up of rap/hip hop artist.
This was likely written prior to ‘99 Summer Jam line up announcement. Even if it wasn’t, what Nas is seemingly implying is that he is by HIMSELF worth(is as good as) the entire line up of Summer Jam.
“All races combined in one man” means that all races exist in him for he is man – as in Human. Before the thought of diversity existed, there was one and one is man. There is only one race, the human race/humanity. The ‘99 Summer Jam relates to diversity and displays man’s diversity but man remains the same, one – no matter how diverse.
Redman also mentioned something about the same show
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this album came out in april of ‘99. i remember hearing clips of “nas is like” on television commercials for the album around the beginning of 99. i doubt he would have known who was playing at summer jam at that point.
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I think he meant the summer jam crowd more than the lineup, being in NY/NJ area you likely have Blacks, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Jamaicans, Italians, Indians(the country), among others composing the crowd. Nas can relate and associate with them all as one entity.