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Ever since his appearance on Main Source’s “Live at the BBQ,” Nas has been refining and updating his style
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The first part of this line (“Too late baby bye”) is from “Too Late” by Junior.
Dancehall artist Buju’s ‘Boom Bye Bye’ is about shooting gay men. Rap Genius prefers ‘Driver A,’ which was used to great effect in Grand Theft Auto 4
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Flush with fame from his costarring role in Coming to America, Arsenio Hall hosted The Arsenio Hall Show from 1989 to 1994. It featured guests like Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, Michael Jackson, Bill Clinton and Louis Farrakhan
KRS One’s fifth time on Arsenio was to perform this very song (along with “Sound of da Police”). In the interview he expanded on the theme of Hip Hop vs Rap.
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DJ Lonnie B, nee Battles, is a member of Skillz' Supafriendz crew
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Funkmaster Flex and Mister Cee are both old-school legends who are still big hip-hop players. Here’s Cee with Big Daddy Kane:
And here’s Flex:
The needle won't skip and shit Ghostface Killah (Ft. Black Thought) – In tha Park
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An old school way to stop records skipping during scratch routines was to weigh down the cartridge with a coin. The downside, though, is that it makes records wear out a lot faster
DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist make reference to this effect in the title of their legendary mixtape Brainfreeze: A Non-Stop Live Mix of Strictly 45s and Exercise in Vinyl Destruction
But Taco Bell was closed the girls was on my tip Sir Mix-a-Lot – Posse On Broadway
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What is this?
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Mr. Miyagi is a Magical Oriental character in the original Karate Kid movie whose martial-arts teaching style includes having his students wax his collection of classic cars
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What is this?
The Genius annotation is the work of the Genius Editorial project. Our editors and contributors collaborate to create the most interesting and informative explanation of any line of text. It’s also a work in progress, so leave a suggestion if this or any annotation is missing something.
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A reference to the Broadway musical of the same name, whose title is taken from a line written by Harlem Renaissance figure James Weldon Johnson.
The ‘god’ here is Nas, as in Five-Percenter theology. Talib Kweli previously made this reference on Blackstar’s “Thieves in the Night”:
Xzibit would later flip Kweli’s words on Reflection Eternal’s “Down for the Count”:
This is a response to Jay-Z’s line in his song “People Talkin'”
Jay-Z had also said a similar line to Prodigy in his diss track “Takeover”
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nas can borrow lines but jay cant…. hmmm
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Also the chorus on One Step by Killah Priest.
X used the same line earlier on Em’s Bitch Please II
“Your arms too short to box with God” directly followed by
“I don’t kill soloists, only kill squads”
Is a twofold reference to Cormega and a reference to Roc-a-fella records i.e.:
- Nas dropped both ‘Destroy & Rebuild’ and ‘Ether’ on Stillmatic.
- It’s known Mega used to box a lot, he’s admitted this in an interview.
- Nas killed Roc-a-fella Records on Ether, but played with Mega on Destroy & Rebuild. (he wasn’t taking all of the diss tracks Mega was releasing seriously)
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Though many people have also used this line, Nas is referencing none of them
Instead he is referencing Jay-Z’s use of the line on his track People Talkin
Jay-Z dropped this line on his 2001 MTV Unplugged album at the height of his beef with Nas in an attempt to ridicule Nas' height and the fact he wanted to step to the physically taller Jay-Z
but instead Nas flips the line and adds God on the end to show although Jay-Z may be physically taller, Nas is spiritually taller with God on his side thanks to his new found religious side from around this period
Also links again to Nas' mocking Jay-Z’s blasphemous ways on Ether when he compared the Brooklyn rapper to Judas and highlights the immorality of his rap name Hova
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Big Daddy Kane used this line on “Mortal Combat”
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Eminem later flipped this line again on his song Rap God
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Down for the count(Rawkus 2000) came out before Stillmatic & is a well known phrase.