The Great Ones Part II Mixtape -“Eye For and Eye Freestyle”- Summer 2000
Nas – An Eye For An Eye Freestyle
If “Is That Yo Chick” was in fact directed at Nas then it would explain the viciousness of his response on DJ Clue’s The Great Ones Part II Mixtape. On this opening freestyle, Nas erases all doubt about who he is targeting and unleashes the following verbal assault on Jay-Z:
“…You can’t B-I/See I’m eternal not luck/You get shot up/Boxed up next for the grave/Your flow is one dimensional/Your level is second grade/You on top, what?/Copying fuck I said it first/You repeated/Your false crown covered in dirt/Defeated/Y’all niggas all hail the King is dead/He running like a bitch with his tail between his legs/Stillmatic still Eye for an Eye/You wanna be God/You’re just the next rapper to die/Fucking with Nas”
As DJ Clue ad libs ominously in the background he ironically follows this Nas salvo with a Jay-Z track.
Backstage: A Hard Knock Life “My Mind Right”- August 2000
Later, either out of loyalty to Jay-Z or a misplaced high opinion of himself, Memphis Bleek responds to Nas’ “Nastradamus” jab on “My Mind Right” from DJ Clue’s Backstage Soundtrack with these bars:
“Your lifestyle’s written/So who you s’posed to be?/Play your position”
This is the point where even casual fans began to take notice that something is brewing between Rocafella and the Queensbridge emcee.
QB’s Finest- November 2000 “Da Bridge 2001”
By the time Nas released the QB’s Finest collaborative effort, its lead single “Da Bridge 2001” had been circulating for several weeks already. On the track Nas begins his verse repping his hood with the following bars:
“We from the livest projects/Biggest place 50 States”
However, upon popping the QB’s Finest CD into the deck when it was released in late November, Nas’ verse is drastically different and much more venomous. Instead of kicking a verse praising his housing projects as he did in the original version of the song he now raps:
“Yo, blow faces/4-4 blazes, no one’s safe/This music mogul rollin wit a hundred soldiers, gangstas we postal/
Oh you didn’t/Wanna know whose life Was Written/The life I’m livin/The ice the women/The kites descending to lifers biddin/The streets to prison/
I touch you then buck you/Heats be spittin/La-ser, AR fifteen doors come down/Jaws is broke, your whole crew’s coffin bound/Your hoe, your man, lieutenant, your boss get found/This dough I got, I spend it and toss around/New York it’s time we flip it, where you from?/Ladies, it’s time we flip it, where you from?/Now tell me who was the true thugs in videos first?/Who had the projects behind us, who bit it the worst?/We from the largest project, yo the biggest on earth/Queensbridge yo the history/Left y’all cursed”
This verse marks the first time Nas takes aim at not just Jay-Z but also Memphis Bleek and most of the Rocafella roster. At this point the Nas
Rocafella beef is one of the worst kept secrets in Hip Hop.
Lovely analysis.
Good stuff. But no mention of The Message, We Will Survive, What You Think Of That, My Mind Right, Nastradamus and The Bridge 2001. I think The Bridge 2001 was the reason the Rocafella artists were freestyling over Queens instrumentals. Nas had dissed the whole Rocafella click subliminally on that record while bigging up Queens.