Back When - Nas

«You love to hear the story»

«How it all, how it all, got started, got started»

Start it off, start it off, start it off

«Back when, back when, back when, back when

Back when, back when, back when, back when»

The ill reminisce and think about the fly days

Nothing like them 80s summer NY days

Hop on the NB5 days

Mopeds, Pro Keds, city split five ways

How it all started, fifth floor apartment

A jigsaw puzzle aerial view of the projects

A kid saw struggle, buried a few of his partners

Now I chill in resorts, enjoying massages

Check out the oracle bred from city housing

Nas, I arise the dead by thousands

I remember seeing Shan chilling near his Audi

Hollis Ave, Run and them, but I proudly

Put a poster up of Shan and Marley, that was art, kid

You love to hear the story how it started

The bubbly I’m pouring wasn’t popped yet

Before there was a audience to watch us I assure you, there was a process

To call them fake today is hate, real niggas extinct

Pac left me inside a rap world with niggas that wink

At other rappers, undercover niggas spit every way

Won’t be surprised if all their rides have federal plates

Let alone their wardrobes and Studio 4 flow

It was real when I appeared, it would’ve been some jaws broke

Nas, my real name, stage name, same thing

How could you let these lames claim king?

I’m so ashamed, man

I light a L for Vernon, for niggas who would burn in Hell

For Vernon;

10th Street, 12th Street, Nightmare on Elm Street

Pimps creep, delve deep inside the editorials

Of the ghetto queens, kings, stories true

Who possesses the testicular fortitude

To blow away myths that’s a hindrance to all of you?

You blame your own shortcomings on sex and race

The mafia, homosexuals and all the Jews

It’s hogwash point of views, stereotypical

Anti-Semitic like the foul words Gibson spewed

And it’s pathetic

, I don’t get the credit I deserve

That’s why I hate doing interviews

But I don’t sweat it, study long, study raw

My man Dion said «Nas over-think the songs he writing»

I’m not a wack performer standing near a corny hype man

I got the Donism

, I’m here to enlighten