Life’s a bitch and then you die
Can’t say it much better than that. Nas and AZ get existential and reflect on their lives and life in general.
As well as being AZ’s debut on wax, this song is notable for the trumpet solo at the end, performed by Nas’s father, Olu Dara.
Nas wanted to sample Mtume’s “Juicy Fruit” but producer L.E.S. brought The Gap Band’s “Yearning For Your Love” instead, which was fortunate since The Notorious B.I.G. would use the Mtume sample on his single “Juicy” released the same year.
L.E.S. provided some background information about the track in an interview with XXL:
AZ was there. Nas was like, ‘A, you got something for this?’ A just went in the booth and spit it, and Nas came right behind him. AZ had a chorus. They vibed, and before I even blinked, I left the studio, went back to the projects, and niggas was like, ‘We love that Nas joint.’ I was like, ‘Damn. Word? How they get that?’
AZ added:
After the hook was there, they was like, ‘Damn, you gotta spit, dawg.’ I was like, ‘Aight, fuck it. If you like it, you like it. You don’t, you don’t.’ I did it, and everybody liked it. That was it. It was history made.