#135, "Black Republican," Nas (feat. Jay-Z) (2006)

150 Favorite Songs: #135, "Black Republican," Nas (feat. Jay-Z) (2006)

So here's the thing: I love grandiose, even pompous, self-aggrandizement in music. I like power ballads, and epics, and big, sweeping statements of a rock star's belief in his or her own greatness. I want that from my songs.

But most songs don't earn that. Listen to a song like "I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)" or "Total Eclipse Of The Heart" or "Drunk and Hot Girls”—those songs are all massive and epic, but they don't live up to the way they sound. Ultimately, they're either nonsense or wankery or just another sad song about how someone doesn't like you as much as you think they should, or in the right way, or whatever. They haven't earned their explosions.

But then there's "Black Republican," and holy shit. Here’s the context, since I just realized that this song is somehow seventeen years old, and you may have forgotten, or be too young to have ever known: Jay and Nas had, in the ten years prior to this song, slowly evolved a feud from a cold war of subliminal cheap shots to a full-on beef where they traded high-profile diss songs. Jay recorded “The Takeover” and put it on The Blueprint, which came out in 2001 (on September 11, as it happens), rapping for five minutes about what a disappointing nerd Nas was, then Nas responded with “Ether,” which was the sort of escalation from which John Wick might have drawn inspiration. The two went on to trade shots on non-album tracks for the next year or so, and then grew up a little and worked it out; Jay announced a show in New Jersey he called “I Declare War” and then, instead of delivering on the promise of the title, brought Nas out during the set, performed with him, and signed him to Def Jam, which Jay was running at the time. A year later, Nas released his Def Jam debut, Hip Hop is Dead, and even with a provocative title like that, “Black Republican” was the most important track.

But it had to earn its explosion. I listened to it in the car this evening, and I still got chills, seventeen years later. (How on earth is this song seventeen years old?) Because from the moment it starts—with the horns from The Godfather Part II and Jay and Nas just chatting, like they're flirting with the listener—it’s only right. "Black Republican," bringing these two guys together, after the beef and the changes that hip hop had already started seeing, it needed to be this big. We deserved something this big, if it were going to happen. The horns needed to sweep in and make things sound fucking regal. You can't fuck up the song that officially squashes the biggest (and most creatively vibrant) non-fatal beef in rap history by not doing it justice.

There are a few things I love about the song besides the fact that it exists. One, that it's called "Black Republican," because both Jay and Nas tweak their image here, and the way they were most easily caricatured during the beef—with Jay as the rich guy in the suit, and Nas as the old militant who never lived up to his potential. Two, the way they each deliver a hook that's almost identical, because I wanted to hear them sound unified on this song. They both get the cadence just right, and when Nas delivers it for the first time, just changing the words "black Republican" to "black militant," it's like Jay handed him a baton that he’s about to pass back. Three, the fact that they get out pretty quick once it starts. After they get done dicking around at the beginning of the song, the thing clocks in at 2:45—Jay does the hook, then his verse, then the hook one more time. He passes it off to Nas, who does his hook, a quick verse, and then they team up for another run through the hooks quick, and the song ends within seconds. They've said what they had to say.

"Black Republican" is one of those moments where a pair of artists had something they knew the world desperately wanted to hear. And they looked at that as a responsibility, and gave it to us exactly the way that we wanted it. That's not easy to do, and it's a reminder of just how great Jay-Z and Nas are when they set their minds to it. Both of those guys have some filler in their catalogs, but neither one of them fucks around here. They knew that they had to do something great, and they did. That's never not inspiring.