One Love (Nas song)

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The more ambitious themes of New Yorkers' rhymes over those of their L.A. counterparts can be traced to the original intention of hip-hop in each city: Many L.A. rappers embraced the drug culture, while those in New York tended to use hip-hop as an avenue of escape from it ... In 'One Love', Nas echoes that perspective, rapping about his own temporary getaway: 'So I be ghost from my projects/ I take my pen and pad for the weekend/ A two-day stay/ You may say/ I needed time alone/ To relax my dome/ No phone/ Left the nine at home.' [10]

Touré

Among those referenced in the song was fellow Queensbridge-based rapper Cormega ("And night time is more trife than ever/What up with Cormega, did you see him, are y'all together?"). [11] Cormega's rapping career had been put on hold due to his incarceration during the early 1990s, before his release in 1995. [11] After delivering "shout-outs to locked down comrades", Nas chastizes a youth who seems destined for prison in the final verse, "Shorty's laugh was cold blooded as he spoke so foul/Only twelve tryin to tell me that he liked my style ... Words of wisdom from Nas, try to rise up above/Keep a eye out for Jake, shorty-wop, one love". [12] Music writer Susan Weinstein wrote that "the literary technique Nas most strongly excels in is the one that would seem to be most pedestrian: rhyme", and cited "One Love" as the first display of Nas's "formal inventiveness". [6]

Retrospect

From artist:

Q-Tip used to come and hang out with me in my projects from time to time. I remember him coming out there and hanging out, and I remember him letting me hang out at his session when he was working on Midnight Marauders. I thought he was just the most incredible, so to have him producing my album, for him to even do the chorus for me is a blessing. The song just came from life, it's a song about letters to prison inmates, friends of mine, shout-outs to childhood friends and their uncles and people who were like family to me. I was, again, too young to be going through all of that. That's what I think about when I hear that album. I was too young to be going through all of that. [13]

Nas

Track listing

A-side

  1. "One Love" (Album Version) (5:23)
  2. "One Love" (Radio Edit) (5:23)
  3. "One Love" (Album Instrumental) (5:23)
  4. "One Love" (Acappella) (5:21)

B-side

  1. "One Love" (LG Main Mix) (5:33)
  2. "One Love" (LG Radio Edit) (4:29)
  3. "One Love" (LG Instrumental) (2:06)
  4. "One Love" (One L Main Mix) (5:43)
  5. "One Love" (One L Radio Edit) (4:48)
  6. "One Love" (One L Instrumental) (1:55)

Charts

"One Love"
One Love (Nas song album cover).jpg
Single by Nas featuring Q-Tip
from the album Illmatic
ReleasedOctober 25, 1994
Recorded1993
Genre
Length5:26
Label Columbia
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s) Q-Tip
Nas singles chronology
"The World Is Yours"
(1994)
"One Love"
(1994)
"Fast Life"
(1995)
Q-Tip singles chronology
"Buddy"
(1989)
"One Love"
(1994)
"Got 'til It's Gone"
(1997)
Chart (1994)Peak
position
US Dance Singles Sales ( Billboard ) [14] 6
US Hot Rap Songs ( Billboard ) [15] 24

Notes

  1. Hip Hop Press: VH1's '100 Greatest Hip Hop Songs'
  2. 1 2 3 Q-Tip Red Bull Music Academy. Accessed on October 13, 2017.
  3. Large Professor Remembers His 'Witty, Sharp, Smooth' Friend Phife Dawg Billboard . Accessed on October 13, 2017.
  4. “Summoned By Aliens”: How Beastie Boys, Pete Rock, Q-Tip & Others Changed Rap Music With The Pause-Tape HipHopDX. Accessed on August 12, 2017.
  5. Love, Dan. Deconstructing Illmatic Archived 2009-03-25 at the Wayback Machine . Oh Word. Retrieved on 2008-02-15.
  6. 1 2 3 Weinstein, S. "Nas." In Hess, M. (ed.), Icons of Hip-Hop, vol. 1, pp. 341–363
  7. Hill, Marc. Illmatic (Anniversary Edition). PopMatters. Retrieved on 2006-02-11.
  8. Illmatic: Ten-Year Anniversary Series Review on Blender Archived 2005-05-03 at the Wayback Machine . Maxim Digital. Retrieved on 2009-02-11.
  9. IGN: Illmatic - 10 Year Anniversary Platinum Series Archived 2008-01-17 at the Wayback Machine . IGN Entertainment, Inc. Retrieved on 2009-02-12.
  10. Touré. Pop View; Only One Star in the Two Schools of Rap. The New York Times . Retrieved on 2009-03-20.
  11. 1 2 Birchmeier, Jason. Cormgea: Biography. Allmusic. Retrieved on 2009-02-22.
  12. RapReviews: Illmatic. RapReviews. Retrieved on 2009-02-11.
  13. Nas' "Greatest Hits": A Track-By-Track Journey With the Pride of Queens : Rolling Stone
  14. "Nas Chart History (Dance Singles Sales)". Billboard. Retrieved May 28, 2022.
  15. "Nas Chart History (Hot Rap Songs)". Billboard. Retrieved May 28, 2022.

References