By: Zach McAnally

NAS

NASIR BIN OLU DARA JONES• Nasir Bin Olu Dara Jones aka Nas was born on September 14 th,

1973 in the Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York

• In 1970 he and his family moved to the Queensbridge housing projects located in New York City where he would spend most of his early childhood years

• Music was quickly introduced to Nas as his dad was a talented jazz and blues musician from Mississippi, Nas instantly fell in love with the profession

• At age four, Nas would sit on his stoop in front of his house and play trumpet for hours

• While Nas was living in Queensbridge, a neighbor by the name of Willy Graham introduced him to hip hop by playing records for him over and over

• He began teaching himself African culture after dropping out of school in 8th grade and reading The Five Percent Nation, the Bible as well as the Qur’an

INTRODUCTION TO HIP HOPWilly “Ill Will” Graham

• Beginning with Willy “Ill Will” Graham as his DJ, Nas began writing and preforming his freestyles and raps

• In 1992 he was preforming on Main Sources “Live at the Barbeque” when a man named MC Serch approached him and told him that he liked what he heard

• MC Serch took Nas under his arm and became his manager getting him a record deal with the very popular record label “Columbia Records”

RAP CAREER Building a rap legend

In 2001 Nas released his album Stillmatc which began a feud between two of the biggest Hip Hop stars of that time. Jay Z made a song called “takeover” which took shots at Nas calling him fake and that his career was so called “lame”. Nas struck back in his songs “Ether” making jokes about the fact that Jay Z has been known to look like the Camel from Camel Cigarettes. When Jay Z’s song “supah Ugly” was released, the cause of the feud was made public. Jay Z claimed to have had a relationship with Nas’s Girlfriend Cameron Bryan. A radio station in New York City had listeners call in and vote on who has the better “diss” song, Nas won with 52% of the vote while Jay Z received 48%. The feud ended when Jay Z had a concert for his new album and Nas stepped out from back stage followed by the two preformed the song Dead Presidents together.

ROAD TO ZION FT DAMIAN MARLEY

In my lifetime I look back at paths i've walkedWhere savages fought and pastors taught Prostitutes stomp in high heel boots And badges screaming,"Young black children stop or I will shoot!"I look back at cooked crack Plus cars that pass byJaguars mad flyAnd I'm guilty for materialism Blacks is still up in the prison trust that So save me your sorries, I'm raising an army Revolutionary warfare with Damian Marley We sparkin' the ions, marching to Zion You know how Nas be NYC state of mind I'm in

ROAD TO ZION • “And Badges screaming, “Young black children stop or I will shoot!”

-African-Americans aged 12 and up are the most victimized group in America. 41.7 over 1,000 of them are victims of violent crimes, compared with whites (36.3 over 1,000) (http://www.soundvision.com/info/racism/statistics.asp)

-Incidents of racial hate crime reported to the police, by bias motivation in 1998 was 4,468. The highest number was reported by African-Americans: 2,901 (http://www.soundvision.com/info/racism/statistics.asp)

• “Blacks is still up in prison trust that”

-In 2000 the number of black men in prison was nearly one in every ten (http://ronmull.tripod.com/racism.html)

-Just three decades ago there were 133,226 African American adults in prison, when the 21 st century came around there was about one million (http://ronmull.tripod.com/racism.html)

These stats were confirmed by The Bureau of Justice Statistics (http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=2174)

DOO RAGS

Political thugs in shark suits persuade us to pull triggersin army boots, yellin "Join the armed forces!"We lost the Vietnam War, intoxicated poisonsNeedles in arms of veterans instead of bigger fortunesThere's still a lot of nigger callin in the coorporate officesWar in the ghetto, we crabs in a barrel, they torture usThey won't be servin the beast too long

The murderers wearin police uniforms, confederate flags I burnBeat Street breakers were dancin to the music I choseAnd Peachtree Atlantic crackheads was tootin they nosein frozen corners of Chicago, loaded up Llama's childrenwith fo'-fo's, and double-revolversWe devil incarnates, headed for jailWhere Shell gas company in South Africa be havin us killedYour paper money was the death of ChristAnd all these shorties comin up just resurrect your lifeIt's like a cycle

On IPod- minute 1:21 to 2:02

DOO RAGS• “Political thugs in shark suits persuade us to pull triggers”

-In the Vietnam war blacks were put on the front line and forced to basically shield the white soldiers from enemy fire, 14.9% of African Americans fighting in that war died (http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/stevens/africanamer.htm)

-(http://www.coloredreflections.com/decades/Decade.cfm?Dec=1&Typ=3&Sty=1&PID=855) In this article it states that sometimes officials would assign black units “one-way” missions meaning they would not come back alive

• “In army boots, yellin “join the armed forces!”

-9,087,000 total people served in the Vietnam war, 10% were African American

-When slaves were freed in the south, although they were not forced to fight for the north, many volunteered while a lot were recruited (U.S History textbook)

-During WWI and WWII people recruited African Americans to fight for what was known as the “Buffalo Soldiers” or the 9 th cavalry of the United States Army, also known as the only all-black unit at that time (http://www.discoverseaz.com/History/BufSold.html)

-(http://scvcamp741.tripod.com/causes/cause2.htm) article states that African Americans were in some cases forced to fight in the Vietnam war by government officials

• “The Murderers wearin police uniforms, confederate flags I burn”

-There are cases of on and off duty police officers that have been convicted of murder, the exact number is not clear ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Police_officers_convicted_of_murder) and (http://www.victimsofthestate.org/CC/PM.htm)

-From when the KKK was first established until present day there have always been police officers involved with the group and with the murders/terrorist acts that are associated with the group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kkk)

• “We lost the Vietnam war, intoxicated poisons”

-To escape the horrors they had seen in war, veterans who came back from wars turned to drugs and alcohol, after Vietnam, the veterans brought back heroin and many became heavily addicted and spread it throughout the country (http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=59344&cat=10)

• “Where Shell gas company in South Africa be havin us killed”

-15 years ago Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other friends spoke out against shells hunger for fuel and power along the Niger Delta, all of them were sentenced to death for speaking out about their frustration towards the oil company (http://www.foei.org/en/media/archive/2010/global-day-of-remembrance-15th-anniversary-of-ken-saro-wiwas-murder)

DOO RAGS

WORK CITED• (http://www.soundvision.com/info/racism/statistics.asp)

• (http://www.soundvision.com/info/racism/statistics.asp)

• (http://ronmull.tripod.com/racism.html)

• (http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=2174)

• (http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/stevens/africanamer.htm)

• (http://www.coloredreflections.com/decades/Decade.cfm?Dec=1&Typ=3&Sty=1&PID=855)

• (http://www.discoverseaz.com/History/BufSold.html)

• (http://scvcamp741.tripod.com/causes/cause2.htm)

• (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Police_officers_convicted_of_murder)

• (http://www.victimsofthestate.org/CC/PM.htm)

• (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kkk)

• (http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=59344&cat=10)

• (http://www.foei.org/en/media/archive/2010/global-day-of-remembrance-15th-anniversary-of-ken-saro-wiwas-murder)