Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones, known to one and all as Nas, is one of hip-hop’s best-known, most mercurial, and lyrically blessed figures ever to touch the microphone. Since his heart-stopping debut turn on Main Source’s “Live at the Barbeque,” Nas has delivered countless beautifully structured, thought-provoking, keenly observed verses.

Growing up in Queensbridge, NY, Nas never really performed in big crowds—he kept to himself. Nas used a different type of vernacular that others didn’t understand, which helped him to stand out from other rappers from his era.

A passion for music struck with Nas at an early age, too. His father, Olu Dara made a successful career as a blues musician, while Nas began recording his own material at just 16 years old.

With every ensuing album, Nas always reminds fans that he’s still the same Queensbridge MC who crafted one of the greatest musical albums of all time, and the bible of Hip-Hop, Illmatic. His second album, It Was Written, built on his well-established success, and is his most commercially accomplished, with over 3 million copies sold and certified triple platinum status. In addition, numerous other releases, such as I Am…, Stillmatic, and God’s Son have drawn universal praise and appreciation from around the Hip-Hop world.

Nas established the Nasir Jones Hiphop Fellowship at Harvard University to fund artists who demonstrate exceptional productivity and creative ability in hip-hop.

“Lose Yourself” is the theme song from Eminem’s semi-biographical 2002 movie 8 Mile. Eminem is narrating the life of the film’s protagonist, Jimmy, up until the third verse, where Jimmy and Eminem’s journey converge.

Engineer Steven King told Rolling Stone in 2003 that Eminem “laid down all three verses in one take”, which Eminem has since shed doubt on.

Eminem stated in his 2008 autobiography, The Way I Am, that he wrote “in-between shooting scenes [for 8 Mile] and taking care of [his] kids” (pg 108-109.) Scans of the scrawled lyrics on A4 writing pad pages were also featured in the autobiography (pg 217-218.)

In 2014, the demo version appeared on Shady Records' SHADY XV compilation album, which featured the same beat and tone but almost entirely different lyrics.

Commercially, “Lose Yourself” was hugely successful and reached #1 in 20 countries, including the US. It marked Eminem’s first US #1, and held the top position for 12 weeks, becoming the third-longest chart-topper from a movie soundtrack (behind “I Will Always Love You” and “End Of The Road”). As of 2022, it is 13x Multi-Platinum in the US.

The song was lauded critically, too. It won two Grammys (Best Male Rap Solo Performance & Best Rap Song) and became the first rap song to win the Oscar for Best Original Song. Eminem didn’t attend the ceremony as he didn’t think he’d win, meaning he didn’t perform it, which is atypical for winners of the category. This was remedied when he performed the song at the 2020 Oscars.

The song has also had a huge cultural impact. Apple used the song for two commercials in the mid-‘00s to promote iTunes and the iPod, with Eminem featuring in the latter video. Chrysler used the instrumental and Eminem for their 2011 “Born of Fire” Super Bowl commercial. In 2021, Eminem opened up a restaurant in Detroit called “Mom’s Spaghetti”, which is a lyric that’s been meme’d extensively (even being given its own fan-made song.)

“Still D.R.E.” was the first single released from Dr. Dre’s sophomore album, 2001. While “Still D.R.E.” is seen as a classic West Coast anthem, the song’s lyrics were completely written by an East Coast MC from Brooklyn, New York named Jay-Z.

Dr. Dre took a nearly seven-year hiatus as an artist to focus on production following the multi-platinum success of his 1992 debut solo album, The Chronic, so he wanted a strong comeback single for his follow-up album. Dre specifically recruited Jay-Z to write the song as he was still riding the success of his 1998 multi-platinum third album Vol. 2…Hard Knock Life. Dre detailed the songwriting process in a 1999 interview with Blaze magazine:

At first, he wrote about diamonds and Bentleys. So I told Jay to write some other shit. Jigga sat for 20 minutes and came back with some hard-ass, around-the-way L.A. shit.

The song’s production is highlighted by a hard-hitting piano melody courtesy of Scott Storch, who detailed the initial creation of the track during an interview with Red Bull Music Academy in 2018:

“Still D.R.E.” was released on November 2, 1999—two weeks prior to the release of the 2001 album. In the US, the single peaked at #32 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, #11 on the Hot Rap Songs chart, and while the single initially peaked at #93 on the Billboard Hot 100, a new peak at #23 was achieved approximately two weeks after Dr. Dre included the song in his historical Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show on February 13, 2022. The song had better success internationally, reaching #1 on the UK’s OCC R&B chart while achieving platinum status in Denmark and Italy, as well as double platinum status in the United Kingdom. The UK’s NME magazine ranked “Still D.R.E.” as one of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

West produced the track, building the beat around a sample from M.I.A.’s critically-acclaimed single “Paper Planes.” It was his first production since the untimely passing of his mother Donda West.

Peaking at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100, “Swagga Like Us” has been certified Platinum by the RIAA with sales of over one million in the United States. This song was number 22 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 Best Songs of 2008.

It was nominated for “Best Rap Song” and “Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group” at the 51st Grammy Awards, winning the latter. All four performed the track alongside a heavily-pregnant M.I.A. at the ceremony:

Two of “Brooklyn’s Finest,” Biggie and JAY-Z, collaborate over a DJ Clark Kent track built around a sample from “Ecstasy” by the Ohio Players. Clark detailed how the track came together in an interview with Complex, saying Biggie wanted the beat for himself but ended up coming to Jay’s studio session where they met and collaborated for the first time.

This song is one of the few Biggie and Jay-Z collaborations.

In an interview with Billboard, the co-founder of Roc-A-Fella Records Kareem “Biggs” Burke recalled the studio session for this song:

This is something that we were dying to get done…Dame actually gave Clark [Kent] the sample for that song. Then, when Biggie and Jay sat at the board, the engineer came and dropped a pad and a pen right in between them. Jay looks at it and then he pushes it over to Big. Big looks at it and pushes it back. That’s the time they realized that neither one of them wrote lyrics [down on paper].

Jay actually went in and did everything in five minutes. He broke down the song and left all these parts [for Big]. It was a different type of beat at that time. Biggie was trying to really catch the beat and when he left, he said, “When I give you a song to rhyme on for my album, I’ma make sure it’s a regular beat so you could do a straight sixteen, not all this breakdown.”

Reggie “Combat Jack” Ossé, a former lawyer for Roc-A-Fella recounted the making of this song:

When I contacted Bad Boy for Big’s clearance, Puff wouldn’t, couldn’t grant us the full single rights. Big had been on almost everybody’s records and Arista didn’t want him to be overexposed. … I remember being on the phone once again begging for Puff to let Big rock on a single and video, and Puff asking me, ‘Yo, what the eff is a Jay-Z? I can’t get Clive Davis to clear Big on some unknown rapper’s record.’ To his credit, Puff did let the Roc keep the song on the album.