G major · Camelot 9B · 87 BPM
The World Is Yours
by Nas
- 87
- BPM
- G major
- Key
- 9B
- Camelot
- 68
- Danceability
- 27
- Acousticness
Nas was preparing his first album when "The World Is Yours" took shape. Having signed with Columbia Records in 1992 after early demos under the name Nasty Nas, the young rapper was assembling Illmatic, which arrived in April 1994. The single came out that May, written by Nas with producer Pete Rock, who also sang the chorus. It reached number 13 on the US Billboard Hot Rap Singles chart.
Pete Rock built the track from samples of T La Rock and Jazzy Jay's "It's Yours" and Ahmad Jamal's "I Love Music" from The Awakening. The lyrics pay homage to the film Scarface and reference the drug dealer Howard "Pappy" Mason as well as the unknown killer behind the Texarkana Moonlight Murders. A remix produced by Q-Tip carried similar but new lyrics, and Columbia released both versions as singles, each promoted with a music video.
The song found life beyond the record. Sprite printed its title on cans and bottles in summer 2015 as part of the "Obey Your Verse" campaign, and the single earned Gold certification from the RIAA on January 28, 2019. It appeared in video games including Tony Hawk's Underground and NBA 2K13, in the 2002 film Antwone Fisher, and on the soundtrack of the 2008 film The Wackness. The Tip mix was sampled in Jay-Z's "Dead Presidents", a track later reinterpreted by rappers including Lil Wayne, Drake, and Kendrick Lamar.
The World Is Yours runs at 87 BPM, the tempo of boom-bap hip-hop, reggae and slow R&B. In classical terms it sits in andante territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 2.76 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 690 ms. It is in G major, Camelot 9B, which shares its notes with E minor and mixes cleanly with C major and D major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.