On May 6, the rapper shared the track, which supports a free Palestine and student protests, on his social media accounts.
The song also pays tribute to 6-year-old Hind Rajab, a Palestinian child who was killed by the Israeli military days after she had called emergency services begging to be rescued.
However, the video has been age-restricted on YouTube, where it has been viewed 232,116 times, prompting social media users to accuse the company of limiting the song's reach.
"The fact that there's a YouTube violence warning before the video just proves every single damn point he's making in the song," another added.
The rapper touched on various topics in the song, including American politics and police brutality, and questioned why peaceful protests were being deemed a threat.
The problem isn't the protests, it's what they're protestin'," "Block the barricade until Palestine is free" and "When I was seven, I learned a lesson from Cube and Eazy-E. What was it again?
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“The Ghetto” is a 1990 single by Oakland rapper Too Short from his album Short Dog’s in the House. The song was featured on the fictional radio station Radio Los Santos in the videogame Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The instrumental was based on the Donny Hathaway song of the same name. The song discusses the struggles of living in the ghetto and the difficulty of getting out of the ghetto to live a more successful life. It also discusses issues such as drug abuse and racial pride. Too Short is mostly known for his raps relating to sex and women, however he did have some songs with a deeper message and serious economic and social commentary. “The Ghetto” being an example of this.
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.
The song that quite possibly got 50 Cent shot – and maybe Jam Master Jay as well. 50 names plenty of names of old-time Queens drug dealers.
From Vibe:
You’ve come under attack for violating the code of the streets with songs like “Ghetto Qu'ran,” where you mention names. Is that a fair criticism?
Everything that’s in “Ghetto Qu'ran” is in Cop Shot—a book in the fucking library. Everything in that song was in the newspapers at the time that it went on. The shit that these niggas is talking don’t make fucking sense.
Written by Donny Hathaway and Leroy Hutson. Released in 1970 as a single by Hathaway. This song connects to other soul/jazz songs released by African-American artists of the early ‘70s such as Curtis Mayfield. This song, although it does not use very heavy lyrics, uses instruments to send its message. The Ghetto uses conga drums, electric piano, improvised vocals by Hathaway, and beats with Afro-Caribbean influence.
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