The song also samples bird chirps from Don Robertson's "Why" and a vocal sample from Biz Markie's "Nobody Beats the Biz". Other than this, the song also contains scratched vocal samples from Nas' previous songs " It Ain't Hard to Tell" from 1994 and " Street Dreams" from 1996. Way's 1966 song "What Child Is This?", from their record Thoughts on the Carols. However, it was later revealed that the track was actually John Rydgren and Bob R. Right after, the sample was identified as "Cantata of New Life" by John Rydgren.
However, in April 2008, an unnamed MP3 file featuring the original sample used was uploaded to the Internet by Dusty Kid from Strictly Breaks. For almost a decade since the track's release, the main sample used by DJ Premier remained unknown. The song is also notable for featuring one of the most sought-after samples by cratediggers. But somethin' told me "before you throw it away, put it on the turntable, see if you can find something on it".Īnd I found that sample of "Nas Is Like", and I broke it into 3 parts, scratched it live to the drumbeat that I already had, with the little chirpin' birds and from there, "Nas Is Like" was born, man. And I was gonna throw it in the garbage, 'cuz it didn't look like it had anything hot on it. It was a ten inch record from a Lutheran church, and it was pink with a black fish on it. This shit is crazy : the day I made this record, I was at my house in Long Island, and I found this old record that I was gonna throw away. In the 14 Deadly Secrets by DJ Premier, Premo said: These include: "I'm like a whole lot of loot, I'm like crisp money / Corporate accounts from a rich company / I'm like ecstasy for ladies, I'm like all races / combined in one man like the '99 summer jam." In the third verse of the song, Nas uses similes to describe his prowess.
Same time my man is murdered,/ the beginning and end" The lyrical presence of Nas was clearly evident from the first lines: "Freedom or jail, clips inserted,/ a baby's bein' born