N.y. state of mind nas lyrics

“N.Y. State of Mind” is a hip-hop track from rapper Nas, from his 1994 debut album “Illmatic”. The production on the track (done by Chris Martin, known as DJ Premier) samples two jazz tracks: “Mind Rain” by Joe Chambers and “Flight Time” by Donald Byrd, as well as vocal samples from Eric B. & Rakim’s track “Mahogany” for the song’s hook.

The song consists of Nas rapping about the dangerous environment in New York City, and DJ Premier spoke to Complex Magazine in February 2011 about the creative process behind “N.Y. State of Mind”: “That was just amazing because it happened in this room. Actually, anything from ’92 and on, we did it here. It was just amazing watching him work because I was already a fan of him when he did ‘Back to the Grill’, ‘Halftime’, ‘It Ain’t Hard to Tell’, and ‘Live at the Barbeque’. So when I heard him on those records I was like, ‘Yo, I got to do something that’s on the same level’. So I came in here. and flipped the ill, gutter, Joe Chambers sample. I can tell you because it’s cleared. Nas watched me build the beat from scratch. And he wrote the verse in the studio. If you listen to ‘N.Y. State of Mind’ you’ll hear him going, ‘I don’t know how to start this shit’, because he literally just wrote it. Before he started the verse I was signaling him going, ‘One, two, three’, and he just goes in like, ‘Rappers I monkey flip’em, in the funky rhythm”. He did that in one take. After he did that first verse, he goes, ‘How was that? Did that sound all right?’ And we were just like, ‘Oh, my God! The streets are going to go crazy when they hear this!’. It was one take, but he would format it before. He’ll sit at the front, cover his mouth when the beat’s playing, and would mumble it. So we can’t hear what he’s saying”.

There is no music video for the track, but the official audio video on Nas’ official YouTube channel has over 7.6 million views since its upload in May 2017.

Release Date: 19th April 1994

Songwriter/s: Nasir Jones (Nas) & Chris Martin (DJ Premier)

Producer/s: DJ Premier

Label/s: Columbia Records

Certifications & Accolades: The track received Gold certification in the US, as well as Rolling Stone magazine placing the song in their “50 Greatest Hip-Hop Songs of All Time” as well as About.com ranking it at #74 on their “Top 100 Rap Songs” list.

Yeah, yeah
Ayo, black, it's time, word (Word, it's time, man)
It's time, man (Aight, man, begin)
Straight out the fucking dungeons of rap
Where fake niggas don't make it back
I don't know how to start this shit, yo... now

Rappers I monkey flip em with the funky rhythm I be kicking
Musician, inflicting composition
Of pain I'm like Scarface sniffing cocaine
Holding a M-16, see with the pen I'm extreme, now
Bullet holes left in my peepholes
I'm suited up in street clothes
Hand me a nine and I'll defeat foes
Y'all know my steelo with or without the airplay
I keep some E&J, sitting bent up in the stairway
Or either on the corner betting Grants with the celo champs
Laughing at base-heads, trying to sell some broken amps
G-Packs get off quick, forever niggas talk shit
Reminiscing about the last time the Task Force flipped
Niggas be running through the block shooting
Time to start the revolution, catch a body head for Houston
Once they caught us off guard, the Mac-10 was in the grass and
I ran like a cheetah with thoughts of an assassin
Pick the Mac up, told brothers, "Back up, " the Mac spit
Lead was hitting niggas one ran, I made him back flip
Heard a few chicks scream my arm shook, couldn't look
Gave another squeeze heard it click yo, my shit is stuck
Try to cock it, it wouldn't shoot now I'm in danger
Finally pulled it back and saw three bullets caught up in the chamber
So now I'm jetting to the building lobby
And it was filled with children probably couldn't see as high as I be
(So what you saying?) It's like the game ain't the same
Got younger niggas pulling the triggers bringing fame to they name
And claim some corners, crews without guns are goners
In broad daylight, stickup kids, they run up on us
Fo'-fives and gauges, Macs in fact
Same niggas'll catch a back to back, snatching yo' cracks in black
There was a snitch on the block getting niggas knocked
So hold your stash until the coke price drop

I know this crackhead, who said she gotta smoke nice rock

And if it's good she'll bring ya customers in measuring pots, but yo

You gotta slide on a vacation

Inside information keeps large niggas erasing and they wives basin

It drops deep as it does in my breath

I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death
Beyond the walls of intelligence, life is defined
I think of crime when I'm in a New York state of mind
New York state of mind
New York state of mind
New York state of mind
New York state of mind
Be having dreams that I'ma gangster, drinking Moets, holding Tecs
Making sure the cash came correct then I stepped
Investments in stocks, sewing up the blocks
To sell rocks, winning gunfights with mega cops
But just a nigga, walking with his finger on the trigger
Make enough figures until my pockets get bigger
I ain't the type of brother made for you to start testing
Give me a Smith and Wesson I'll have niggas undressing
Thinking of cash flow, Buddha and shelter
Whenever frustrated I'ma hijack Delta
In the P.J.'s, my blend tape plays, bullets are strays
Young bitches is grazed each block is like a maze
Full of black rats trapped, plus the Island is packed
From what I hear in all the stories when my peoples come back, black
I'm living where the nights is jet black
The fiends fight to get crack I just max, I dream I can sit back
And lamp like Capone, with drug scripts sewn
Or the legal luxury life, rings flooded with stones, homes
I got so many rhymes I don't think I'm too sane
Life is parallel to Hell but I must maintain
And be prosperous, though we live dangerous
Cops could just arrest me, blaming us, we're held like hostages
It's only right that I was born to use mics

And the stuff that I write, is even tougher than dice
I'm taking rappers to a new plateau, through rap slow

My rhyming is a vitamin, Hell without a capsule
The smooth criminal on beat breaks

Never put me in your box if your shit eats tapes
The city never sleeps, full of villians and creeps

That's where I learned to do my hustle had to scuffle with freaks
I'ma addict for sneakers, twenties of Buddha and bitches with beepers
In the streets I can greet ya, about blunts I teach ya
Inhale deep like the words of my breath
I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death
I lay puzzle as I backtrack to earlier times
Nothing's equivalent, to the new york state of mind
New York state of mind
New York state of mind
New York state of mind
New York state of mind

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