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Kicking shit called street knowledge Ice Cube – The Nigga Ya Love To Hate
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When Ice Cube went independent, he named his production company Street Knowledge:

as a callback to the opening line on NWA’s seminal album Straight Outta Compton. Dr. Dre says, “You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge” before the title track kicks in.

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1,555

8 years

The context he is using here is militant. If you look at the next line “why more niggas in the pen than in college?” Ice Cube was know for his politically charge music. It is dis to mainstream. List to the album again.

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And motherfuckers that say they too black
Put 'em overseas, they be begging to come back Ice Cube – The Nigga Ya Love To Hate
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A dig at politically radical black nationalists and Afrocentrists: they may criticize the U.S. for racism and other ills and glamorize Africa, but if you ACTUALLY sent them to Africa, they would miss soft toilet paper and digital cable

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2 years

This line always stuck with me and it’s very significant. I think more people in the US need to hear it and know how good we have it in the US compared to other countries that they wanna flee to

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2 years

Years later, rapper Chino XL would use a modified version of this line when he said: “Chino’s like Africa:
Yeah niggas talk about it but they don’t really wanna go there” in ‘I Told You So’

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That's why I'm sick of getting treated like a goddamn stepchild Ice Cube – The Nigga Ya Love To Hate
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The proverbial “red-headed stepchild” is treated poorly, with no respect. Cube is tired of society treating him as a superfluous offspring.

He’s directly referencing lyrics from Chuck D, from the track “Louder Than A Bomb”:

This style seems wild
Wait before you treat me like a stepchild

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The police, the media, and suckers that went pop? Ice Cube – The Nigga Ya Love To Hate
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Much of AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted concerns rappers who “sold out” or “went pop”, meaning that they changed their style to please the white mass-audience

This record was released in an era (the early 1990’s) when rap received very little radio play. The album dealt with this most directly on the song “Turn Off The Radio”

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The Nigga Ya Love To Hate Ice Cube – The Nigga Ya Love To Hate
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Ice Cube’s classic (and often-borrowed; see here and here) polemical theme: you love to hate him! You hate to love him!

Ice Cube provided some background for this track:

That was originally supposed to be a song for N.W.A [lyrically, not the music]. I felt like mainstream America hated us [N.W.A], like they thought we was the worst thing to come out to America since… Columbus! [laughs] And that fired us up, because it meant that we was being heard. That was the most important thing. I mean, rap is the blues, especially gangsta rap, because you’re hearing our pain, whether you agree with it or like it or not. You’re hearing what we’ve got to say. If not, then you’re voiceless, you’re not even a number to a lot of these… people in high places.

We had different choruses for that song. One went, ‘Love, hate’ and then other things in there. And we was trying to find stuff that we could scratch in. I thought about it for a long time, like a whole day. And then I came up with, ‘Fuck you, Ice Cube!,’ like people were mad at us for doing hardcore rap. And everyone in the studio thought I was crazy, like, ‘How you gonna say ‘Fuck yourself’ on your own record?!’ We talked about it for a long time and then Chuck said that it was dope, he liked it. So we did it.

Producer Sir Jinx said the following about his discussion with Ice Cube about the chorus:

I'ma tell you something: me and Cube had a disagreement on the ‘Fuck you Ice Cube.’ I was like, ‘Why would you want somebody to say, 'Fuck you?’‘ And he loves this…

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9 years

This line represents what America has to deal with because he hi not being treated fairly.

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They just studied your flows and they watched your interviews Aaliyah (Ft. JAY-Z) – Miss You (Remix)
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Many rappers have been accused of stealing Biggie’s flow, including Bad Boy artist Jamal “Shyne” Barrow

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8 years

Ja Rule was criticized as a Tupac wannabe, often plagerizing Pac’s words
remaking one of his songs and even biting his style.

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Kidada's missing you Aaliyah (Ft. JAY-Z) – Miss You (Remix)
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Daughter of music legend Quincy Jones, actress Kidada Jones was very close to Aaliyah.

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But I guess that's the issue
And it proves how much niggas really miss you Aaliyah (Ft. JAY-Z) – Miss You (Remix)
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A final twist in the verse – rather than strictly criticizing the Biggie and Pac imitators, Jay here says that the mere existence of so many wanna-be’s shows how deeply those two artists impacted the world

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Miss You (Remix) Aaliyah (Ft. JAY-Z) – Miss You (Remix)
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This is Jay-Z’s official remix of Aaliyah’s track “Miss You,” which was officially released on April 29, 2003. Aaliyah recorded the original in 1999, and it was released posthumously in November 2002. Hov recorded his verses at the top of 2003.

The singer, who was a close friend of Hov, had tragically passed away after a plane crash in the Bahamas on August 25, 2001. Here he takes the chance to reminisce on their relationship while paying tribute to her and the other fallen “soldiers and soldiettes” in the music game.

A portion of the single’s enhanced-CD sales was donated to the Aaliyah Memorial Fund.

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By the way, Big, we missing you, Pac, we missing you Aaliyah (Ft. JAY-Z) – Miss You (Remix)
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This final verse and outro moves on from Aaliyah and pays tribute to two legendary murdered rappers. They are Jay’s friend and “King of New York” Christopher “The Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace, who passed on March 9, 1997, and Tupac “2Pac” Shakur, who passed on September 13, 1996.

Jay briefly talked to Sway about the two legends and their impact during an interview with MTV:

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