"The Master, the Masses. One has power the other one lacks it..." - Nas

"The Master, the Masses,
One has power, the other one lacks it,
Guns are power, controlled by assets,
Owned by financial forecasters.

Who are the Masters?
They are the gangsters, they are the bankers,
The ones who tax us.

The Masses?
They are us: the sheep, the people,
Divided in classes.

I go off like a Shiite bomb,
So all y'all see I'm on,
My war-paint-on-my-face #,
Nine-millimeter-on-my-waist #,
I'm-a-problem-shoot-up-your-place #,
Let a few go, get low, blazin' haze again...

The Masters: the Wall Street war-chiefs, the elitist groups,
The Masses pray to Jesus saying he will see us through,

The Masters are the aristocratic.
The Masses ask if the most high is on his way here,

I try to stay clear, my mind is modern day spear."

-Nas
Dispear from the album Distant Relatives - Nas + Damian Marley



Not sure how many ATS-ers are into this style of music, but I think it's worth noting that there are some real artists out there trying to get a message across. The verse above is at the 1:15 mark of the video.

Hip hop has always been at the forefront of many so-called alternative ideology, many of which can be found on this site. It's a shame that a whole cultural movement has been exploited and dismissed due to the drivel you see on MTV. It's even gotten to the point that people accuse some rappers like Nas of being a part of the Illuminati! Sort of ironic, seeing as how hip hop was what first hipped me to many of the topics you see right here on ATS.

I've grown up on hip hop and can't stand to see so much of it passed off as some Top40 BS. Hope you like the song, check out their album, it's FIRE.

nas is one of the best rappers in mainstream hip-hop.

he is in on it tho....i will let you mull over that for a bit
-jplaysguitar

Ok, look firstly start using the search function and for e.g. search 'nas' to see if a thread like this has been done before you post a new one....

secondly I don't know how you can justify a whole thread for 1 song/artist, and I think if it is just one song/artist you're talking about you should have put it in off topic - music,
but that's just my 2 cent.

thirdly, there is a huge thread on hip hop already which attempts to compile all the decent hip hop on these topics there so I welcome you to add your recommendations to the list, or at the least I'm sure you might find some music you hadn't heard before

Truth in the form of Hip Hop

Peace,
-B.M