For this week’s song share, I have gone with a rap classic in “The World is Yours” by Nas.  This song comes off the legendary rap album Illmatic, which is commonly referred to as one of the greatest rap albums ever made.  For some background on Nas (Nasir bin Olu Dara Jones), was born in New York City and is considered to be one of the legends of rap.  A pioneer of East Coast hip hop, Nas saw his come-up begin as young as 16 years old when he found himself in the studio with known producer Large Professor.  5 years later, Nas’s debut album (Illmatic) is released and becomes a smash hit.  The album included production from Large Professor, Pete Rock, Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest, and DJ Premier from Gang Starr.  These may not be familiar names for anyone, but each of those names have had a big influence in East Coast rap and hip hop.  Nas’s raps combined with spectacular production made Illmatic an unbelievable album that helped propel Nas to stardom.  Since then, he has released many more projects, and it can be safely said that he has had a very successful career as a rapper.  Going into more detail about the song though, the song samples Ahmad Jamal’s 1970 song “I Love Music”.  Jamal’s song includes the virtuosic playing of piano which Pete Rock took as a sample and remixed to be the main part of the beat to this song.  The piano to me is beautiful and is by far the most recognizable aspect to the entire piece.  The cutup recording of the piano plays on repeat for essentially the entire duration of the song.  Nas raps over the beat for most of the song, besides the hook where Pete Rock and Nas both feature.  The song itself, along with the music video pays homage to the film Scarface, as the phrase “the world is yours” is prevalent in the film.  All in all, this song is fantastic.  It is one of my favorite rap songs, and that can mostly be attributed to it being featured on the NBA 2K13 soundtrack which was curated by Jay-Z.  It also appeared on the video game, Tony Hawk’s Underground which is an incredibly high rated video game that was very successful.  I should also preface that this song includes explicit language, as most rap songs do.   However, I hope you enjoy the song.