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The hit single “Hate Me Now” (with Puff Daddy) isn’t the only track to express hostility. Nas boasts of swapping murders with other rappers (“That’s how we do business/. . . You wet who I want wetted, I wet who you want wetted”) and using an assault rifle to “blow [a rival’s] muthaf—ing mind” (“Favor for a Favor”). On “Undying Love,” a man shoots his cheating girlfriend between the eyes, prays to Allah and Mohammed, and then kills himself. The vulgar “Money Is My B–ch” uses crass sexual metaphors to describe cash. On “Dr. Knockboots (Do’s and Don’ts),” the artist fancies himself a sex therapist, advising fans on matters such as oral sex, condom use, date rape and enhancing sex with alcohol. The f-word appears on many cuts, including “We Will Survive” (a duet with R. Kelly) and the explicit “K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” an ode to forced intercourse. Elsewhere, the rapper promotes Tarot cards, “thug life” and marijuana (“blunts,” “indo,” “the hay stack,” etc.). He alludes to himself as a Christ figure on the egomaniacal “Nas Is Like” (“Nas is like Iron Mike, messiah type, before the Christ . . . I’m like ecstasy for ladies”).
On one of I Am . . .‘s mind-numbingly repetitive raps, native New Yorker Nasir Jones boasts, “I’m twisted like Dr. Death Kevorkian.” Very true. If only the rapper could be similarly indisposed. Obscenities. Murder. Drugs. Suicide. Immoral sex. A worthless collection.
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