One Love

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Lore & Background

The track was produced by Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest, who created the beat in the house basement of Phife Dawg's grandmother while producing A Tribe Called Quest's *Midnight Marauders* album. After Q-Tip met with Nas in the basement, Nas heard the main sample and decided to use it for "One Love." Q-Tip used the pause tape method of production. At the recording session, after Nas's verses were recorded, Q-Tip "finessed" the song's drum programming. The song contains samples of the Heath Brothers' "Smilin' Billy Suite Part II" (1975) and Parliament's "Come In Out of the Rain" (1972), along with an interpolation of Whodini's "One Love" (1986). In the song's first verse, Nas references fellow Queensbridge emcee Cormega, whose rapping career had been put on hold due to his incarceration during the early 1990s. Nas later explained that the title of the song originated from Jamaican singer-songwriter Bob Marley's song of the same name, which, according to writer Mickey Hess, "echoed the ubiquitous street salutation 'one' (similar to 'peace') used around Nas's neighborhood."

In Their Own Story

The rain fell on Vernon Boulevard as Nas sat on a stoop, a pen in hand, the damp air thick with the smell of wet concrete and exhaust. He thought of Mike, doing a bid upstate, and of Willie, whose name he'd heard on the news—gunned down over a corner dispute. The streetlights flickered, casting long shadows that stretched like the years ahead. He wrote: 'I'm writing you a letter, hope you're better.' The words came like a prayer, each line a bridge over the river of time and distance, carrying the weight of a friend's murder, a mother's tears, the cops who'd shoot for no reason. He sealed the envelope, knowing the mail would carry his voice to the cellblock, where his friend would hear the beat of the block in every syllable—the squeal of tires, the hiss of a crack vial, the distant wail of a siren.

Reader's Guide

The lyrics of "One Love" are composed of a series of letters written by Nas to incarcerated friends, recounting mutual acquaintances and events that have occurred since the receiver's imprisonment, including unfaithful girlfriends, emotionally tortured mothers and underdog loyalty. According to one writer, the phrase "one love" represents street loyalty in the song. Among those referenced in the song was fellow Queensbridge-based rapper Cormega ("And night time is more trife than ever/What up with Cormega, did you see him, are y'all together?"). After delivering "shout-outs to locked down comrades," Nas chastizes a youth who seems destined for prison in the final verse: "Shorty's laugh was cold blooded as he spoke so foul/Only twelve tryin to tell me that he liked my style ... Words of wisdom from Nas, try to rise up above/Keep a eye out for Jake, shorty-wop, one love." Music writer Susan Weinstein wrote that "the literary technique Nas most strongly excels in is the one that would seem to be most pedestrian: rhyme," and cited "One Love" as the first display of Nas's "formal inventiveness."

Did You Know?

• In 2008, VH1 named "One Love" the forty-eighth greatest hip-hop song.
• The song's title originates from Jamaican singer-songwriter Bob Marley's song of the same name.
• Q-Tip created the beat using the pause tape method of production in the house basement of Phife Dawg's grandmother.
• The song contains an interpolation of Whodini's "One Love" (1986).
• Nas references fellow Queensbridge emcee Cormega in the first verse, whose rapping career had been put on hold due to his incarceration during the early 1990s.