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NAS: Who would have thunk it?

I'm an eighth grade dropout.

Ninth grade?

I left school early.

You know, my mom,

I'm sure I worried her a lot,
you know?

Me and my bro
worried her a lot,

you know, early on,
not knowin' what we wanted.

But we didn't want
to become nothing.

We wanted to be something and,

you know, I didn't know

what my future would hold.

There was a little,
little hope

that came in that darkness.

OLU DARA: Along came
my son, Nas, you know.

I just felt like
a king was born.

(CHEERING)

JUNGLE: Every rhyme
was like the best shit
I ever heard in my life.

WIZ: Eight, nine,
10-years-old, talking
about the devil and God.

Nobody was really rhyming
like that back then.

(CHEERING)
(SHOUTING) How many people

have Illmatic ?
One, two, three!

(CROWD CHEERING)

JUNGLE: Illmatic was the
new beginning of rap.

AZ: It was like,
living a hustler's life,
through poetry.

(CHEERING)

BOBBITO: That was
a genius at work.

1994 classic Illmatic ,

he was prophetic.

He had the courage
to tell the truth about

the dark side of black
existence in America.

Illmatic is one of
those transformative
moments in hip-hop.

A hundred years from now,
that title is just
going to stand out,

from one of the strongest
pillars in hip-hop. Period.

What he was
able to do lyrically,

completely shifted the climate

of how the MC was
supposed to rhyme.

It was so honest
and it's so truthful

that it's never gonna not be

one of the best
albums of all time.

NAS: When I made Illmatic ,
I was trying to
make the perfect album.

It comes from the
days of Wild Style.

I was trying to make you
experience my life.

I wanted you to look
at hip-hop differently.

I wanted you to feel
that hip-hop was changing,

and becoming
something more real.

I gave you what the
streets felt like,

what it sounded like,
tasted like, smelled like,

all in that album.

And I tried to capture it
like no one else could.

Going to a concert,

I think to myself, "Wow,
this is what I do
for a living.

"I chose this,

"and then it happened?

"And now, this is what
I do on the regular?"

You know, being from Queens,

that's as good
as it gets right there.

Begin.

Uh.

(MUSIC PLAYING)

My musical journey
ain't start with me.

I come from a long line
of musicians and artists.

It's in my blood.

What I am today
is an extension of
what they were then.

* New York state of mind *

You can trace my
artistic roots

all the way to Natchez.

(SONG ENDS)
(CHEERING)

Natchez, Mississippi.

(BLUES GUITAR STRUMMING)

(OLU DARA SINGING)

My ancestral name

is Olu Dara.

It means, "God is good."

I was born in America,

a place called
Natchez, Mississippi,

which is right
on the river,

during the heart
of segregation,

the Klan or
whatever like that.

You could see the,

the burning
of the crosses

at all times.

You had musicians
all over the place,
you know, on my father's side.

He and my godfather,
they had a group
called the Mellowderes.

They traveled
all around America.

Well, the family
has been like this.

A lot of musicians, artists,

teachers, you know,

sharecroppers, farmers,

hoes, prostitutes.

But they all had
a higher grade of
how they dealt with it.

It was never like some
low, squaloring stuff.

But it was always,

if they were gonna ho,

they'd ho at
the top of hoedom.

Whatever we did,
we always did it

on the top and
made it dignified.

I did four years in the Navy.

I was discharged
in New York City.

That's when I met
Nas's mother.

So I stayed a couple
of days too long

and ran out of money
and I got stranded here.

And at the same time,
along came Nas
and his brother.

It was tough

for the mother and me,
for the whole family then.

What I started to do
was going back
and forth to Europe,

so I could have
some kind of money.

And she moved to Queensbridge,

you know?

And I was worried.
I was really worried.

Because I knew
it was going to be
rough out there for her

and the kids, you know.

In the '70s, you had
mothers and fathers.

In the '80s, you had
a lot of single mothers.

In the '90s, you had
people being raised
by their grandmothers.

DR. WEST: Historically
speaking, you gotta
keep in mind

the GI Bill
was a bill in which

persons had access
to education,

credit, they gained
access to houses,

so you could live in suburbs
away from the city.

So, black folk
received very little
of the GI Bill money,

in terms of housing,
only 2.1 percent.

That's why you could create
a white middle class

with black folk
gaining no access to it.

And then they create
these housing projects
that go all the way up

to pack folk in,
like sardines.

MAYOR FIORELLO LAGUARDIA:
(ON RECORDING)
Down with hovels,

down with disease,
down with crime,

down with fire traps.
Let in the sun!

Let in the sky!

A new day is dawning.

A new life! A new America!

(PEOPLE CLAPPING)
MAN: (ON RECORDING)
Thank you, Mayor La Guardia.

DR. WEST: Historically,
they were built for
working class families,

no matter what color.

But because the color line
is so thick in America,

once black folk made
their way from the south

into the cities and began to,
in significant numbers,

fill up the projects,
you got white flight.

And that white flight
resulted in a withdrawal
of money and wealth

from the city.

You know, I tell you,
Queensbridge to me,
it looked messed up.

It looked like
a buried diamond.

I had a chance
to have a childhood

for at least a little bit,
you know. And then...

You know, you had to...
I felt like I had
to become a man early,

to deal with my environment.

I saw the difference
early on in the type
of parents I came from.

Good people,

hard workers.

We had a color television,
we had VCR.

You know, we had a carpet.

We had nice things
in our places,

compared to some of our
other friends who had nothing,

who ate hot dogs for dinner,

who had no furniture,

you know, who was living bad.

Like, we didn't
really lack food.

My mom was a great cook.

Everybody wanted to
come to our house.

"Ms. Jones is cooking?
I'm over there."

She had a great spirit.
She didn't talk
with curse words.

She didn't talk street stuff.

You understand?
She was not like that.

We needed stuff, she'd say,
"I don't want y'all
to go out there and do it,

"find another way to
get it. I will get you it."

JUNGLE: My father
had a library in the crib.

He had, like, a wall unit.

It was a library,
he had all kinds of books.

Everything, from the
Book of the Dead...

JUNGLE: Egyptian books
about King Tut...

OLU DARA: Psychology
of the modern man.
NAS: Malcolm X .

OLU DARA: Sun Tzu.
JUNGLE: Instant facts
about the world.

OLU DARA: History
of Chinese Philosophy.

NAS: They Came Before
Columbus by Ivan Van Sertima.

OLU DARA: Aesop's Fables.
NAS: Afrocentricity.

OLU DARA: Adowa the King.
NAS: From Superman To Man
by J.A. Rogers.

OLU DARA:
The Bible, proverbs .

The trials and
tribulations of ghetto life.

I found that
helped them a lot.

NAS: My pop had been all over
the world in the Navy,

and then traveling
through his music.

So he had a lot of stories to
tell me and my brother about

places outside the block,

outside the neighborhood,
outside New York,

outside America.

So there would be a
xylophone made of wood,

trumpets, guitars, maracas.

They were toys to me, man.

When Pops would leave,
we'd just be banging
on those things,

you know what I'm saying?

OLU DARA: See, Nas...
I thought Nas was going
to be a great trumpeter.

He would play
trumpet every day

with drummers
outside our building.

I took the trumpet away
from him. I said,
"You can't play now because

"your lip might get,
get messed up.

"Wait till you're like seven,
eight-years-old, when your lip
is more, more mature."

He was very...
He was furious about that.
He loved it.

So, by the time
he got to be seven,

you know, I offered him the
horn again, he said,
"No, I'm into something else."

JUNGLE: He used to
wake me up in the morning
with rhymes every day

like, "Yo, how
this sound? How this sound?"

But, since he was waking
me up in the morning,

I would tell him, "Yo.

"Yeah, I didn't
like that word.

"You said this,
you should have said..."

You know what I mean?
And he used to come back,

wake me up again, "Yo, how
this sound? This is better."

But I knew he was
the best as soon as
I ever heard him rhyme.

NAS: I had a friend,

a real friend, William Graham.

We called him Will.

We used to play around and
make music when we was young.

Uh, me and Will,
we'd make tapes and,

and stuff like that
and play 'em for our friends.

We looked forward to getting
together and making tapes.

OLU DARA: Willie
lived right upstairs.

He was like my
surrogate son also.

He had another way of
looking at the world.

And the combination of the two
with their minds was like,

boom, like an explosion.

I used to go upstairs,
his crib,

and he'd be baking brownies

and taping videos, so

one time he said it
to a girl on the phone.

She said, "What you
doing?" He said,

"Baking brownies
and taping videos."

And he bust out laughing.

You know, I guess to him,
it sounded real soft.
(CHUCKLES)

So, every day, he'd say
to somebody, "What you doin'?

"Baking brownies,
taping videos?"

He'd say this to everybody.

WILL: (ON RECORDING)
It's all I wanna hear .

NAS: He made you laugh.

He was all about
having a good time.

That's how we was.
We was like two peas
in a pod, you know?

And, uh, we was working
on music all the time.

But back then, it was, like,
just playing around.

(RAPPING)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

Back then the vibe
was different,
the music was, you know

bass, 808s in the music.

And people was
having a good time.

The style was like fresh.

It was colorful. It was rich.

Well, they used to have
the jams in the park

and one of the DJs
was from my block.

DJ Hot Day.

Hot Day was known throughout
the neighborhood for
bringing out his equipment.

Everybody hear that
the jam was getting
ready to happen.

You see them carrying the
equipment to the park.

And sometimes
I tried to help.

It was life, it was greatness.
It was, like, so much
potential out there.

It wasn't until later
that I started to see
the deterioration

and, um, see the effects of,

of what they
started to call crack.

We're fighting the
crusade for a drug-free
America on many fronts.

NAS: The city was
about to look crazy.

It's sad.

And it wasn't
just a gangster thing.

Any and everybody
made money off crack.

It was survival

to the fullest.

REPORTER: (ON RECORDING)
The collapse of the
inner city economy

has created a new way of life,

an economy based on drugs.

NAS: People that was older
than me were more hip
to what was happening.

They were making
money off of it,

so, you know,

it spread everywhere.

And I'm just
sitting back, watching.

( NY STATE OF MIND PLAYING)

NAS: I wanted to give
you that feeling

of New York at nighttime.

You know you look at things,

like shots goin'
off every night.

You're seeing what's
happening around you.

Pregnant ladies
trying to smoke crack.

MALE REPORTER: (ON RECORDING)
It's a $100 billion
a year business.

FEMALE REPORTER:
(ON RECORDING) Crack-related
crime is soaring.

NAS: Dudes is late night
waiting to rob you,

and you're just maneuvering
your way through that.

And then the crazy
cops coming through

'cause they had to be crazy
running after somebody

in that neighborhood at night.

The atmosphere was lit.

( NY STATE OF MIND CONTINUES)

OLU DARA: To survive here
with a family
at that time was hell.

Believe me. Especially
if you didn't have any help.

And we had no help.

NAS: Yeah, my parents
had reached, like,
a final breaking point,

you know, where it was it.

My pop just kneeled down to me

and gave me that
one-on-one. I'm sure he said,

you know, what he had
to say to my brother, too.

When he came to talk to me,
he gave me that "You're the
man of the house" speech.

"Now, I'm not going to
be around now" speech.

One day, they
had a crazy fight,

and my father never came back.

And I used to
look out the window

and my moms told me
he wasn't never coming
back to the house.

She said he can't come in.
If he do knock on the door,

and I'm there and she
ain't there, don't let him in.

And that shit just some...

That shit fucked me up
in the mind, a little bit.

'Cause I was so young.
My moms never dealt
with me as a kid.

She always talked to
me as if I was her age,

or I was smart enough to know
anything that's going on.

So, when she said that shit,

you know, I just knew
it was real. I'm like, "Fuck."

I just kept looking
for him out the window,

but he never came back, man.

You know, man.

He moved around Harlem,

you know, somewhere else.

And I'd visit him there.

My mom never spoke
anything bad about my father.

My mom felt that,

you know, she had
been done wrong.

I guess, you know,
she was a hard worker,

who took care of all of us,
including my father sometimes.

You know, he wasn't
always working.

She was the one who
provided for all of us.

JUNGLE: My father
had a lot of talent.

We got the talent
and stuff from him.

I think that's where,
you know, the...

The talent came
from his side and,
you know, the intelligence.

But the smarts...

And then my moms
was so smart, man.

My moms is dead

and my father is alive,

and I don't really
want my father to really,

fucking, even know him.
Damn, I love you, Dad.

But, yo, my moms,
I wish she was here

to be, like, praised
as much as he is

for Nas's life,
especially for Nas.

Anything to do with Nas, yo.

My mother is the one that...
You know what I mean?

Without her,
we would be no nothing.
We'd have been gone.

NAS: I noticed times

when my mom'd be crying, or

sad or she just...

Moments where
she'd be hugging us
when we were little

and just talking about how
things were going to be
all right and all of that.

Those were

great times 'cause we
had a beautiful home

inside that neighborhood.

Our home was right

for the most part and, um,

we had a lot of love,
you know. So she
was just really positive.

And, um, happy, you know.

She laughed, we laughed
together, a lot.

Um...

She really just wanted the
best for me and my brother.

JUNGLE: I used to be
going this way, trying to
go to school and shit,

and see all of that
early in the morning.

Somebody get shot
and all kinds of shit.

It was less police,
so shit was real.

I had to go to
Junior High School 204,

that shit was like
Rikers Island,
that shit was like jail.

It was junior high school.

(INDISTINCT TALKING)

OLU DARA: What I found out
in New York,

they were not raised like
we were raised in the south.

Nurturing, you know, with your
own people raising you.

He had never experienced any,
any, no love like that before.

And I went over to
enroll them into school,

it was almost like
enrolling them into hell.

It was shocking to
me, I felt very bad.

To see that my father
was raised in a
nurturing school system,

I was raised in a
nurturing school system,

and here come my kids,
I have to have kids
in New York City

and they into this.

NAS: I did like school
in the beginning.

I only remember good teachers
in elementary school

and junior high
school a little bit.
There was Ms. Braconi.

MS. BRACONI: Well, Nas
was in a bright class,

in the first and second grade.

And I remember
we did a project.

The children had to make

a face, their face,

on a mask-sized form.

I was hanging them up

and then I stepped back
to look at them

and I saw Nasir's face.

And he wasn't happy that
day for some reason.

And he had captured
himself perfectly.

And I thought,

"Wow,

"this kid can
express his feelings."

NAS: They tried to put me
into like a slow class
in elementary school

and my mom raised hell
and got me out of there.

I still had dreams, like...

I wondered what it
would be like if I was
in art and design,

or some other school
that, you know,

that really would push
some of my talents,

you know, that
I thought I had.

But, um,

when you grow up
in an environment where

the taxpayers
are not making a lot of money,

then they don't have
the funding for schools.

And, when the schools
don't have any money,

you get a no-money education.

And you wind up getting
people who's not motivated

and start looking for
other ways, faster ways.

I would just stop
paying attention,
I would just daydream.

And in junior high school,
I got kicked out

and put into another
junior high school,

where I really
didn't care anymore.

So, by the time
it was time for high school,

it was like, I mean,
grades was terrible

and I didn't care.

So, I found
an assistant principal

and a math teacher
and they told me,

"Your kids don't
belong here, this is not...

"This will destroy them,
they don't care."

They were old enough then.

They were men to me.
'Cause I felt I was
a man at that age,

13, 14, whatever.

I said,
"I tell you what you do.

"Go work, make you some money.
This is America.

"Quit school,

"if you want to
save your own life.

"Develop your craft, or
whatever you want to do

"and I'll back you."

They smiled,

I got calls from my
mother, my sisters,

everybody. "How dare you?
How could you do it?"
You know.

I wouldn't have felt
right the rest of my life,

if I had let them
just stay in school,

and keep being beat down
and the teachers not,

not really having
any love for the kids

and stuff like that.

JUNGLE: Yeah, yeah,
he told me if they not
teaching me nothing,

then don't go, and try and
figure out life on my own.

And, and I'm smarter
than the teachers, anyway.

And, um.

They was just
there to hold us back.

He said the whole
school system was

just holding black men back,
black little boys back.

So, he told us don't...
Um, you know,
read our own books again,

and, you know, teach
ourselves what's going on.

And, you know, he knew...

I think he knew that we was
going to be entrepreneurs.

So he told us
we didn't need school.

My mother didn't
agree with that shit,
but it worked for us, yo.

You know, my mom's biggest
fear was us not doing school.

And at the end of the day,
I didn't want to hurt her.

My friends, you know,
all of them were in the game.

I didn't want to
do that full-time.

I didn't want to
do that at all, really.

And I really didn't have to.

I planned to be something,

like, really something.

You know, I was just
really into music,

writing, whatever.
Just anything around arts.

And I just kept
telling myself,

this can't be my career,
this other thing.

It can't.

I had a passion
for creating things.

So, that was
going to be my out.

(CHEERING)

(MUSIC BEATS)

* We came here
tonight to get started

* To cold act ill
or get retarded *

(BEATBOXING)

NAS: Back in the days,
Roxanne Shante was
getting a name

as this big rapper in
the neighborhood.

(RAPPING)

And she came in
my building one time

and she heard us in
the hallway, trying to rap

and Shante said, "Look,

"I want y'all
to come perform with me."

There was like some
Queensbridge park jam
that was going to happen,

that we heard about
and she wanted to
bring us on as her crew.

We was like, "Oh wow!"
So we were talking about this
every day, working on it.

That's when we started to
realize we're not really good.

So she asked us,

you know, to spit for her
at a different time.

And we tried to rap.

And we started
laughing because it
wasn't coming out right.

She didn't laugh.
She said, "Listen,

"if y'all don't have
your routine the
next time I see y'all,

"I'm fucking
both of y'all up."

She's older than us and taller
than us and we believed her.

MARLEY MARL:
Basically, around '84,

I started sampling at
the crib in Queensbridge.

Now, the funny thing
about me making records,

I didn't make records
or get into this industry

for the money
or anything else.

If I was making a beat in the
window and it was blasting out

and somebody was
walking through 12th street,

if they didn't stop and
do a two-step or something,

I would make a new beat.

ANNOUNCER: (ECHOING)
Ladies and gentlemen,

we got MC Shan and Marley Marl
in the house tonight.

They just came from off tour.

They want to tell you
a little story about
where they come from.

1985, maybe I'm 11,
maybe I'm 12,

my man comes to get me, "Yo

"there is this
new song by MC Shan."

Oh, he's like, "Yo, he got a
song called The Bridge
about the neighborhood."

( THE BRIDGE PLAYING)

MARLEY MARL: Which was
never meant to be a record,
that's crazy.

It was meant to be
intermission music
for Queensbridge Day.

But the tape went
around Queensbridge

and hey, became
a Queensbridge hit.

And the rest is history.

( THE BRIDGE CONTINUES)

When I heard that record,
I just stopped
everything I was doing

and was, like,

"Oh shit!"

You automatically
knew it was a smash.

MARLEY MARL:
The pride was crazy.

You know, we had an anthem.
It was on the radio.

People knew, "Yeah,
I'm from Queensbridge."

I couldn't believe they lived
in this neighborhood with us.

You know what I'm saying?

So that was amazing to me.

Then, you'd say,
"There go Shan.

"There go Marley in his car."

You meet people and
tell them where you from,

most people never
heard of this place.

That song changed everything.

( THE BRIDGE CONTINUES)

I go down south and I'm
a Shan fan and everything.

I'm a fan of
everybody else,

but I'm really
feeling good about my
neighborhood and everything.

I get back,

the day I get back,

the kids is talking about
this South Bronx record.

And I'm like, "What?"
And they's like,

"Yo, there's this record.
They dissing Shan and
Marley." I'm like...

"All right, well,
let me hear it."

( SOUTH BRONX PLAYING)

Aw, man, you know,
why are they hating?

You know what I mean?

Uh, they trying to
be like Shan and Marley.

But it was also raw,

that he was going
"South Bronx,"

* South South Bronx, get it
South Bronx *

Uh, the beat is tough,
I can't front.

So Shan put out
Kill that Noise.

* Rapping any
style or categories

* Fresh freestyles
real live stories

* This jam is dedicated
to you and your boys

* And if you knew what I knew
then you'd kill that noise *

And then,
The Bridge Is Over came.

* I say, the bridge is over
the bridge is over

* Biddy-bye-bye
the bridge is over

* The bridge is over

* Hey, hey *

Phew!

It was... It just...

It just silenced
everything. It was like, "Oh.

"Oh. They not playing."

( THE BRIDGE IS OVER CONTINUES)

(LAUGHING) Oh! Ho! Ho!

I was like, "It's real."

MARLEY MARL: It was a battle.
Shan was in that battle.

Shan did his thing.

KRS One did his thing.

The morale went down
in Queensbridge until
the Nases came out.

JUNGLE: That was our lives,
you know, man.

That was not only our
lives, it was the whole
Queensbridge lives.

Do you know what I mean?
Then we knew...

Fucking KRS One just said

"the Bridge is over"
and all that shit.

We was little kids
coming up under that shit.

Like, you know,
the Bridge ain't over.

We super-ill
niggas out here, right?

So, we had to let the
world know how ill we was.

When everybody thought
in hip hop that
the Bridge was over.

Are you fucking crazy?
We was ill.

NAS: I already knew
I had to prepare

to block that hate out

or to tear that down.

And my choice was
to tear it down.
( REPRESENT PLAYING)

ALL: (SINGING)
* Represent, represent *

NAS: As a kid back then,

I felt like every day

was one step away from

the end.

Me, my man Will
and my man Bo.

We went to see Aliens III.

Will never smoked weed,

but we thought it
was the best thing.

Smoking weed
just chilled us out.

Especially, Will. He can...

You never know,
he's unpredictable.

Somebody come around
and say the wrong thing,
he's on their head.

So, I felt like if he smoked,

he'd be chill.

We watching the movie
and Will said,

"Let me hit that."

And he really hit it.

Yo, we were like,
"Ah, this is crazy."

And when we got
back to the block,

me and Bo had went
to go get some weed,

but Will stayed on the block.

And, I think, he was
collecting money 'cause we
was throwing a barbecue.

So, everybody that's out there

that's hustling,
they gotta put in too.

Somebody thought that
he was extorting 'em,

and started yellin'
and smacked him.

He had a big Gucci
link chain with a big
Mercedes Benz medallion

and she popped it.

He was already on one.
We was lit up from the movie,

so he just reacted back.

He beat up this girl
and shit and um,

she called her baby father
and her boyfriend.

Her baby father
and her brother.

And the niggas
had stepped to me.

I remember I was
sitting right here.

NAS: My man ain't never
hit no girl in his life.

Matter of fact, if a
girl got hit out there,

they could come get him

and he's stepping
to somebody for the girl.

It's just like,
in the heat of the moment,

certain violations,

you know, you react to 'em,
and that was a first.

I was sitting right here
and the niggas had stepped
to me like, "Yo,

"Where's ill Will at?
Where's ill Will at?"

And one nigga was like...

You know, man,
he was gonna do it.

You know, man? So,
I knew they wasn't playing.

I tried to lie to them,
but they was serious.

So I told them a super lie,
like, "He went that way."

Then, when he came,
when Will came,

I was like... He was over
there where them kids are at.

And they saw us.

And I was like,
"Will, they coming now."

He said, "Nigga,
I'm not running from nobody."

And then, when the dude
just did the shots...

(GUNSHOTS)

I looked at him
and he looked at me,

and his eyes opened up wide
and I saw the life leave.

His eyes stayed,
stayed in one position

and I was like,
"Oh shit, he's dead!"

I thought,
I was like, "Oh, shit!

"Today is the day that
everybody was going to die."

I thought I was
going to die, too.

And I felt the bullets
plucking through
my shirt and my pants.

One right here in
the shoulder up there.

It grazed me,
took a little meat off.

And then, uh,
one came through my leg

from the back and
came out right there.

Nas came out of this
building right here.

He was talking to
a girl in this building.

He came out this
building right here
and walked over there,

looked at me
on the floor and I said,

"Yo, don't tell Mommy."

I swear to God. I told that
nigga, "Don't tell Mommy."

Like I could strength
that shot and somehow,

spend the night out
and come home without my
moms knowing I got shot.

When I heard the shots,
I came, you know, I knew that

the shots were happening
in the area where we at.

So, I went downstairs,

and I came outside

and the first person
I saw was my bro.

It was Jungle,
he was on the ground.

And his eyes... He was...
His eyes were open.

He was good.

Then I see my man.

And um...

So, he wasn't moving.

I mean, at that point,
it was like,

"We let somebody
take one of us out?"

You know what I mean?
Like, we... This is it, man.

We might as well all go.

Nothing mattered
no more, we...

Whatever.

JUNGLE: I ain't blaming
nobody, but...

I would have moved.

You know, man,
if my son got shot,

and I used to tell
my mother this shit.

Why didn't we move, yo?

I had to come outside and
look at this block again

and all that shit
was traumatizing.

That shit made me into,
like, a crazy person.

That shit made me
a shooter and all that shit.
That shit made me like that.

Give me a cigarette, yo.

You know, at that point,
even life itself didn't
seem too valuable.

Somebody else's,

mine, nobody's seemed
valuable at that point.

OLU DARA: Will was a
lot of things to Nasir.

He was very creative.

Just like Nas was.
He was very knowledgeable
about a lot of things.

They read. Basically,
they thought
basically the same.

They were basically
brothers in a way. Yeah.

So I noticed his demeanor
did change, he got more...

Uh, maybe cynical
about the world or whatever.

He had a little
sadness in him.

A little hurt.

I can still see that
in him sometimes.

JUNGLE: To me, it made
him take life serious.

'Cause he was right on
the verge of getting that
record deal around that time.

And it was either
you sell drugs and
be in the hood forever

or you do this music shit.

Once Will died, he did music,

we didn't even barely
see him no more.

'Cause Will was down with
what he was trying to do.

They was all together,
trying to do the music shit.

After he passed,
it was like he was...

Was orchestrating
things from upstairs.

It was around that time, man,

we felt it happening.

We felt like something good
was about to happen.

LARGE PROFESSOR:
Got introduced to Nas through
my homie Joe Fatal,

and his boy, Melquan.

They came to me and
said, "Yo, we got this guy,

"and he wants to make a demo.

"You know, he has his
own money and everything.

"And he wants to see if you
can make a beat for him."

NAS: So, he was like, "Yeah,
I'm up here, working with

"Eric B and Rakim
and Kool G Rap..."

And all these
big names and I'm like,

"Damn." You know, this was it.

This was where, you know,
the hit hip-hop albums

were being made in
this studio right here.

WIZ: There's a lot of dudes.
A lot of street dudes.

And me and Nas, being young,

15, 16,

and we going inside

and um, Large was like,
"Yo, go in the booth."

You know, everybody talking.
He just, just,

just quietly, like,
"Go in the booth."

Nas would go in the booth,
he throw in a beat
and he start rhyming.

And everybody'd get quiet.

NAS: I was in the Mecca.

I was inside
the place that
everybody wanted to be.

(LAUGHS) In my mind, this was
what I was thinking, right?

"All right, you wanted
to do this...

"You here now, baby.

"You here.

"This is it.

"Do your thing."

( IT AIN'T HARD TO TELL
PLAYING)

(NAS RAPPING)

"Who's that back
there? Who's that?

"Who's that? Who's that?
Who's that?

"Man, that boy nice.

"Goddamn.

"The nigga is... Oh, man!
How old are y'all?"

It was just like,

"Yo, that's crazy
right there. Like, yo.

"You good, like yo,
you good, man."

I'm excellent with that,
man, right there,

so we was on from there.

Let me formally
introduce my boy.

This is my man,
the rapper, Nas.

- Nasty Nas.
-(EXCLAIMS INDISTINCTLY)

NAS: I started off on
my verse from
Live at the Barbeque.

Everybody was
just excited, you know.
This is something new.

This is going to come up
and change the game.

They are not even going
to see you coming.

( LIVE AT THE BARBEQUE PLAYING)

* It's like that y'all
* That y'all

* That y'all
* That y'all *

MC SERCH: It was
one of the illest lines

anyone ever heard an MC say.

"When I was twelve, I went
to hell for snuffing Jesus."

I mean, I must have
rewound that, like, 100 times.

This Main Source album
is brilliant, but, um,

who is that kid?

Oh, it almost felt like,
within a week,

everybody wanted to
know who that guy was.

Nas said the line, "When
I was twelve, I went to
hell for snuffing Jesus,"

and I said,

like, "Who is this guy?"
You know, it's crazy.

I went on a mission
to try to find him.

MC SERCH: I originally
met Nas in '92,

when Nas was at G Rap's crib.

It wasn't until '93
when I was working
on my solo album that

I really got to know Nas.

He came to the studio
when I was doing
Back to the Grill Again.

( BACK TO THE GRILL AGAIN
PLAYING)

* Back to the grill again

* Get up and get down

* I told you never stand still

* So here's a true or false

* Tell me if it's fact or bull

* You wanna kill the Klan

* Shoot the fans
at a tractor pull

* Got crazy game

* So no one can stop me

* But hey, yo, I'm white

* I guess my game is hockey

* Back to the grill again
the grill again

* Back to the grill again
the grill again

* MC Serch *

MC SERCH: "Waving
automatic guns at nuns."

I never saw those verses

as being shock and awe.

They weren't just about
the words themselves.

They were about an
emotion and a feeling,

so you had to use an example.

Like, I am so angry
at the system

that I have to channel
that anguish
and that frustration

into waving automatic
guns at nuns.

( BACK TO THE GRILL CONTINUES)

I get a call from
my friend, MC Serch.

And Serch says, "I found
that kid you're looking for.

"You know, that kid,
Nasty Nas from Queensbridge."

And he said,
"Not only did I find him,

"but I got two demos on him."

I said to my boss,

"If you never
let me sign anything,

"just please let me
sign this kid," you know.

And he said,
"Okay, all right, all right."

You know, and that's
kinda how it happened.

NAS: I always wanted to
be on Columbia Records.

They just seemed like the most
serious record label to me.

But now I'm invited in.

You know, I mean,
I'm like, "It's about time
y'all recognize, right?"

And I'm looking at all
the history on the walls.

I'm kinda looking
around the place like,

"You guys are waiting for me."

You know, I'm talking to
the walls and the desks

and the plaques and the, um,

the floors and the
people walking, I'm like,

this is... "You guys
have been setting,
setting this up for me."

And I'm here, that's how
I felt. I'm like,

"This is home now."

He never told me,
"I got the deal."

He never said that shit.
He just came back
with the money.

You know what I mean?
Like, "Yo, I got some money."

He didn't tell me how
much he had or nothing.

He just was like,
"Yo, what you want?

"Go to Macy's and get..."
You know what I mean?

He brought me some Guess jeans
and shit like that, like,

"Yo, here.
You want some money,
I got you." And all that shit.

I didn't even know what he was
doing. I didn't even know how.

I just figured,

"Cool you got this
little bit of money.

"That's the most money
we ever gonna have. Ever."

And, you know what I mean?
"This is the end.

"You gonna do some
videos and we good.

"We back in the hood.
And that's the shine
that we got."

I didn't know that
shit meant the world.
You know what I mean?

I thought that shit
just meant the Bridge.

DJ: (ON RADIO)
You know what time it is,
y'all hear the Bridge beat.

That's the anthem right here.

BOBBITO: That's where
you guys are from, right?

NAS: No Question.
MAN: Queensbridge
in the house.

BOBBITO: Yo, repeat
what I'm sayin', like,

peoples definitely been
waiting for the album.

Why don't you let them know
what is going on with that.

NAS: (ON RADIO) Yeah, the
album getting ready
to come out in January.

The name of that is Illmatic.

NAS: You heard Live
at The Barbecue,

you heard Back to
the Grill Again,

so now it's album time.

NY State Of Mind, which
I knew was going to be
the first record on the album.

I'm bringing you through hell
and back, I'm bringing you in.

Here it is, this is
song number one when
you pop in that tape.

( NY STATE OF MIND PLAYING)

Word up! Hey, yo,
black this out.
It's time, it's time, baby.

(MC SHOUTING INDISTINCTLY)

DJ PREMIER: I said I wanted
to do something that's slow.

So I'm already thinking
darks and walk-with-me
type of joint.

Yo, it gotta make you do this,

and that makes you do that.

* Straight out the
fucking dungeons of rap

* Where fake niggas
don't make it back

* I don't know
how to start this *

MISS INFO: When I wrote the
review for Illmatic in
The Source magazine,

I didn't know that it was
going to change hip-hop.

I only knew that
it changed me,

with one listen.

KENDRICK LAMAR: Illmatic is
the album for the '90s era
when I was growing up.

The stories he was telling was
something I could relate to.

Illmatic will always be
number one.

ERYKAH BADU: Coming
from Dallas, Texas,
Illmatic was my secret.

It was my weapon. It was the
steel that sharpened my steel,

which set the tone for Baduizm

and everything else
that I would do.

J. COLE: In 1994,
I was nine-years-old.

I came up in Fayetteville,
North Carolina,

so a lot of things
didn't make it to me.

He hit us with life
lessons and insight

on how to maneuver
through this world as just
young black men in America.

Fab 5 Freddy,

I'm in the laboratory
with my man right here.

It's big Nas, son.

It's Illmatic.

L.E.S.: Nas called me,

and was like, "Yo, I got one
more slot on the record.

"Come to the studio,

"bring all your disks,
bring all your beats."

I didn't even get a
chance to play anything.

The first beat
that I pulled up,

was Life's a Bitch .

( LIFE'S A BITCH PLAYING)

(RAPPING INDISTINCTLY)

AZ: I'm from Brooklyn,
I'm from East New York.

You know, where I'm from,

the homicide rate
is like an all-time high.

When I wrote Life's a Bitch,

another one of my
homies just passed.

That was like the third one.

A lot of brothers
was incarcerated.

I shot it at one of
my homies, and it was like,

"Damn, son. Like, oh, shit."

I felt it from the heart.

( LIFE'S A BITCH CONTINUES)

Q-TIP: The rhyme flow
from the MC perspective

the nigga put down was crazy.

But when you say
"I'm destined to live
the dream

"for all my peeps
who never made it,"

nestled within all of that

street grimy shit
the nigga talking,

is hope.

( LIFE'S A BITCH CONTINUES)

NAS: Early on
my pops told me, you know,

"You're going to be the man
of the house, I'm out."

My moms told us, you know,

"He's still your father,
he still loves you."

You know, that story
and it was like...

I'm sure I wasn't
happy about it.

But, you know,

to me, I've always
been like, "That's life,"

you know, "Keep pushing."

* Life's a bitch
and then you die

* That's why we get high

* 'Cause you never know
when you're gonna go *

NAS: The track

just had a jazzy feel to it.

I just felt like
I could hear my pop on it.

I just asked him to play
something that reminded him of

when me and my brother
was kids in the neighborhood.

(INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC PLAYING)

That record is the mind-set

of most people today still.
It's still me.

It's still who I am,
as far as,

when you listen
to those words,

it's sort of like philosophy
in a way, you know.
It's like...

You know,
it's talking about life.

( THE WORLD IS YOURS PLAYING)

That 19-year-old was

the beginnings of me.

You know, the beginnings
of who I am today.

If it wasn't for me in that,
in that mind-set then,

you know,
people wouldn't know,

people wouldn't
be with me today.

* I sip the Dom P

* Watching Gandhi
till I'm charged

* Writing in my book of rhymes

* All my words
pass the margins

* Behold the mic,
I'm throbbing

* Mechanical movement

* Understandable smooth shit

* That murderers move with

* The thief's theme

* Play me at night
they won't act right

* The fiend of hip-hop

* Has got me stuck
like a crack pipe *

The vibe of that
song was straight
Tony Montana, Scarface .

"The world is yours,"
that's what it said
on the blimp.

That was it. That, that
was serious in the movie
when he saw that.

It was like a sign.

PETE ROCK: I saw this
jazz album, Ahmad Jamal and...

You know, just threw
it on, one day

as I was vacuuming
my room and I heard
the loop go by.

That's when I started
making the drums.

I was like, "Hmm,
let me put something in
there that's kinda like

"not just your
regular boom bap, but

"something else, like..."

(BEATBOXING)

(MUSIC BEATS)

That was the first beat.

When he heard it,

I saw him just freeze,

you know what
I'm saying? And just...

You know, just start closing
his eyes and getting an idea.

He came up with the idea
of me singing the hook

and I wasn't,
I wasn't with it.

He was like, "Nah,
I want you to sing it, man."

Then he started singing it
the way he wanted me to do it.

And I did it,
you know what I'm saying?

(SINGING)
* Who's world is this? *

( THE WORLD IS YOURS PLAYING)

* Who's world is this?

* I said the world is yours
the world is yours *

NAS: "Thinking of the word
best describing my life

"to name my daughter,

"my strength,
my son, the star,

"will be my resurrection."

I had no idea

I would have kids
in that order,

the way I wrote that rhyme

and what their sexes would be.

It's just, I spoke that
on my first album

and that's how
life turned out.

That is...

That is chilling.

All right, peace.
Peace.

I was born right here.

Snacky boy.

Hey!

What up?

Oh, shit! Oh, shit,
what up, man?

Good, baby.
What up, man?

Karate K.

Look good, baby.

What's up with you?

This is the dude here that
used to snap on me every day.

If I came outside and
my sneakers was fucked up,

he would send me
back upstairs.

This dude was the best ever.

The best. What up baby?
I'm a huge fan.

Since Illmatic.
You already know.

Yo, I can bring cameras,
y'all all right with that?

Just want to check
with y'all to make sure.

Peace. How're you?

What up, baby?
What up?

Nigga got big as hell.
Yeah, I'm home.

I ain't little
Messiah no more.

You big Messiah, now.

Welcome home, my nigga.

Yeah. What's goin' on?

Hey, y'all.

Hey, peace. What up?

I love you, Nas.

I love you too, baby.

I never saw that

I'd be having this day,

to look back

and think about
where I come from,

and made it
to where I'm at.

This was a story that
needed to be told.

It was already told by MC Shan

and Marley Marl, Craig G,

Shante, the Juice Crew.
You know what I'm sayin'?

It was already told...
Tragedy.

Um, it was already told.

So, I was just an
extension of that.

You know, I'm sayin',
they paved this way. They...

They made this happen.
What's up, little man?

Come here, give me five.

How you doin'?
What's your name?
Noah.

What's your name?
Noah.

Noah. Nice to meet you, Noah.

Stay good, man.
What's your middle name?

Nasir.
Nasir?

Give me five, man!

Yo, look. Everybody with
that name are kings.

So we are kings, okay?

Just know that
for the rest of your life.

Don't ever think
anything else.

Just know that
you are a king, all right?

My man.

Be good.

What's up man?
Give me five, give me five.

OLU DARA: I remember
being in Europe

and I hadn't seen my
boys for a long time.

So I went out to
Queensbridge to look for them.

A man with a camera,
a guy I knew, said

"Hey, there are your boys."

And they come running over.

They hugged me and
kissed me and shit

and then they posed
for the photograph.

(SNIFFS)

I just never
forget how they looked.

'Cause they had,
they had changed.

I had been gone so long.

But, you can just tell,
they were...

They had been released
from their mother's arms.

And they were just out there.
Just having fun.

You know?

When I first
saw that
Illmatic cover,

I knew exactly
where that
photograph came from.

From the looks
of the photograph,
you can just tell

that's the way his mind
just opened up.

To me, his mind
was saying, "Wow,

"what a world!

"What a world."

NAS: So, you'd have
this your background
for Illmatic .

Danny Clinch,
the photographer,

when he showed us
this picture,

it just felt like,
you get a chance to see

the neighborhood
in a larger way.

That day was a big day for me

because we had made it,

we were rolling out
with an album.

We were doing a
photo shoot for the album.

There was no stylist,
there was no budget

for anything
except a cameraman.

To get to that point is the
biggest day in your life,

so we were celebrating.

JUNGLE: Nas said,
"Come outside, yo,

"a camera crew is outside."

Everybody knew Nas
was a rapper, you know,
he had a song out.

So, you know,
people came outside.

There's a lot of people around
that want to kill each other,

that just got together
that day,

just, um, for the
pictures and shit.

That was a crazy day
in the hood.

Everybody got their
turn in Queensbridge,

for somethin' to happen.

Some of them people
are going to catch murders,

and some of them people
are going to get beat up.

Some of them people
are going to go to jail,

but all them people
wanna have a story.

Everything will happen
to each individual

in that picture, one by one.

He's doing 15 years.

He's fighting a murder.

He's doing life in prison.

He just got locked up,
no bail.

My man just, um...

He just did some...
A shit load of time in

fucking North Carolina
and Briggs

crazy ass life.

He do a bunch of fuckin'
time in and out of jail.

And this shit is real,
it's the projects.

That's fucked up.

It's so fucked up

to just see what happened.
You know what I'm sayin'?

Like, it makes me
really realize,

if it wasn't for music,

you'd have told a story about
that kid, too, on the bench.

if it wasn't for music,

you would have
went along that line,
telling that story

or maybe I wouldn't even
have been in that picture.

That's not what I
wanted to see happen

to nobody in that picture.
You know, I wanted...

I wanted the best
for my friends.

You know what I'm saying?
So...

Yeah. It's crazy.

I still have dreams
about bein' here.

I still have dreams
like I'm here.
I don't know what it means.

I feel like every hood is
haunted by the brothers
that walked through there.

You know, the essence
of them is still here.

It helped make this place
what it is.

They kinda like govern it,

spiritually,
you know what I mean?

So, you always
remember the homies.

You always remember
the ones that meant a lot,

that died for even
this neighborhood.

That died for us to be here.

I feel like a voice
for those ones that

passed on,
you know what I mean?

Because, I was here.

This was me, this is what
it was about for me,

you know what I'm sayin'?
This was like...

This was life.

(CROWD CHEERING)
(NAS SHOUTING)

DJ PREMIER: This song
right here, goes out
to everybody you love!

Especially all the
motherfuckers on lockdown.

Hold your head up.

( ONE LOVE PLAYING)

* Hold your head up, nigga
hold your head

* Yo, to the L, to the O

* To the V, to the E

* To all my niggas locked down
in Queensbridge

* To all my niggas locked down
in New York City

* To all my niggas locked down
in Queensbridge

* To all my niggas locked down
in New York City

* Say love *

Q-TIP: Large Professor
hit me, told me, "Yo,

"you need to link up with Nas,
I know you got it."

It was Large and Akinyele

and Nas that came out.

We had a little

set up in Phife's basement.

Nas was like, "I just
need that shit you do."

You know I'm saying, like,

that mystic shit.

I played him
what was to become

One Love.

NAS: I found myself
getting letters

from friends who were
locked up all the time and,

you know, me saying what's
going on in the free world

and him telling me how
he's maintaining and

asking me questions
and that's going
back and forth, you know.

Um, just keeping this
brother's head up.

I never heard a record

where somebody's
writing letters to people.

If I did, it was like
a love song,

or it was never from
a street perspective.

So, One Love was about
keeping people's head up

in locked up situations.

( ONE LOVE PLAYING)

Q-TIP: "Heard he
looks like ya.

"Why don't your
lady write ya?"

That right there, if you
examine those two bars and,

and just look at what happens
when we get incarcerated.

You know, you're dealing
with an African-Ameri...

A young African-American
disease almost,

is incarcerating black men.

Not only do you
incarcerate them

in a physical sense,

but you incarcerate,
you emasculate them,

you incarcerate their

manhood, their identity,
their spirit.

( ONE LOVE CONTINUES)

There's a thing that
we say in the hood.

"Yo, she's a good bitch,
she gonna bid with you,

"if you get locked.

"She's not fucking around.

"She's galvanizing
all your people,
making sure you get visits.

"She's holding you down."

But when you are black and
in America and in the hood,

with no income and
hard to find a job and
crime all around you,

there's a cloud of dysfunction
that just hovers over

that young sister.

So just in that line,

"I heard he looks
like you ya. Why don't
your lady write ya?" shows

how the prison system,

also destroys

you know,

union

and love and family,

you know what I'm saying?

And destroys promise and hope.

Not only for the person
who is incarcerated,

but those people
who are attached

to them on the outside.

( ONE LOVE CONTINUES)

(MUSIC FADES)

Oh, thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

STUDENT MODERATOR:
The Hiphop Archive

was established
at Harvard University

to support art, culture
and knowledge of hip-hop,

and its followers.

The Nasir Jones
Hiphop Fellowship

is designed to provide
students and artists with

the opportunity to demonstrate
that education is real power.

Can we all just welcome
Professor Morgan,

Mr. Nasir Jones
and Professor Skip Gates.

NAS: Everybody I grew up with,

no one finished college,

no one

owns a store,

owns a bank.

Dudes is doing life.

You know, dudes are dead.

Dudes are,

are, you know, in the streets,

or don't know where
they're at, you know, so

an album comes out
during that period, right?

Could you imagine
being approached
by Harvard at that point?

It's like, if it's going to be
the Nasir Jones Fellowship,

it's gotta be someone
who's been consistently
working and building.

You want to

make a contribution
to the world.

I said, "Our friends be

"in the projects or jail

"never Harvard
or Yale," years ago.

And now... And here we are.

DR. HENRY LOUIS GATES:
So that they realize
this is an art form,

this is a contribution to
world civilization.

Being studied at
a university like Harvard.

Being preserved in
a hip-hop archive.

Having fellowships created
for the geniuses of the genre,
like Nas Jones.

NAS: I represent my friends
that didn't make it.

I represent all the guys

'cause they helped me
get here.

Just their conversations,
just us riding out together
as young teenagers.

The things they told me,

the things that I told them.

And we mixed it all up.

The things we survived,

and the things that we lost.

I represent all my guys,

you know I'm saying, that
didn't make it here with me.

You know I'm saying,
that were there with me
from the beginning.

I didn't trust anything.

I didn't trust
anything outside the
world that I lived in.

I didn't care about politics,

I didn't care about
America that much.

I didn't care that much
'cause I didn't believe
that it believed in me.

So today,

you know, thank God I'm here.

I've made it through the storm

and this is an amazing honor,

for myself and if...

If I may say so,
to hip-hop, too.

Aw, man. Give it up,
give it up.

(CLAPPING)

NAS: A kid dropped out
of school, a kid from
the projects in New York,

you know I'm saying, gets...

You know, gets recognized.

This ain't about just music.

I wanted to do Illmatic

to leave my voice,
my opinions,

my philosophies,

my ideas

in music form, in rap form,

as something that

was proof that I was here.

( THE WORLD IS YOURS PLAYING)

* It's yours, yours, yours

* Whose world is this?

* The world is yours
The world is yours

* It's mine, it's mine
it's mine

* Whose world is this?

* It's yours

* It's mine, it's mine
it's mine

* Whose world is this?

* The world is yours
the world is yours

* It's mine, it's mine
it's mine

* I sip the Dom P

* Watching Gandhi
till I'm charged

* Writing in my book of rhymes

* All my words
pass the margins

* To hold the mic
I'm throbbing

* Mechanical movement

* Understandable smooth shit

* That murderers move with

* The thief's theme *

(CONTINUES SINGING
THE WORLD IS YOURS )