"Nasty" is a song by American rapper Nas. The song, released via iTunes on August 9, 2011, is the first single from his tenth studio album '' Life Is Good'' (2012). The song is produced by Nas's long-time producer and frequent collaborator

Salaam Remi Salaam Remi Gibbs (born May 14, 1972) is a Grammy winning American record producer known for his association with Nas, Amy Winehouse, Robby, Fugees, Fergie, Estelle, Black Thought, and Miguel, and for his reggae-tinged (often referred to as ...

. The song was listed at #37 on Rolling Stone Magazine's "50 Best Singles of 2011", and was also named as the best hip-hop song of 2011 by

Rap Genius Genius is an American digital media company founded on August 27, 2009, by Tom Lehman, Ilan Zechory, and Mahbod Moghadam. The site allows users to provide annotations and interpretation to song lyrics, news stories, sources, poetry, and document ...

. The song was later featured on the soundtrack to the 2012 film '' Project X''. It was also featured in the video game " The Crew".

Recording

"Nasty" was written by Nasir Jones and Salaam Gibbs, and produced by the latter under his production name Salaam Remi. Gibbs provided and arranged the use of many of the instruments making up the song's instrumentation, including bass instruments, keys,

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

s and drums. The song was recorded by Gleyder Disla at Instrument Zoo Studios—a recording studio in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. It was mixed by Manny Marroquin, Chris Galland and Erik Madrid at Larrabee Studios, Universal City in

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

. Additional vocals were provided by

disc jockey A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music festival), mobile ...

Big Kap Keith Carter (February 26, 1970 – February 3, 2016), also known as Big Kap and The Wardin, was an American hip-hop DJ who was born in New York City and was later based in Atlanta. Career In 1995, he was a member of hip hop supergroup The Flip ...

, although his vocals are uncredited. "Nasty" was

mastered Mastering, a form of audio post production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device (the master), the source from which all copies will be produced (via meth ...

by Chris Gehringer at Sterling Sound,

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

Composition

"Nasty" is a hip hop song of three minutes and four seconds in length. The song is backed by a "minimal",

boom bap Boom bap is a subgenre and music production style that was prominent in the East Coast during the golden age of hip hop from the late 1980s to the early 1990s. The term "boom bap" is an onomatopoeia that represents the sounds used for the b ...

orientated production, with

s and drums interspersed throughout. Unlike many modern hip hop songs, "Nasty" maintains a simple construction throughout: according to Rob Markman of MTV News, the song consists of nothing more than "hard rhymes over an infectious loop". Evoking many of the "infamous park jams" held in the Queensbridge district of

in the 1980s, a

can be heard shouting "Are y'all ready to see Nasty Nas?" as the song begins.

Music video

Background

A music video for "Nasty" was filmed in

, and directed by

Jason Goldwatch Jason Goldwatch (born September 1, 1976) is an American music video director and commercial director who is a Co-Founder and Executive Creative Director of Decon, a creative agency and record label based in New York. He is best known for his work ...

. The video is set in

Queensbridge, Queens Queensbridge Houses, also known simply as Queensbridge, is a public housing development in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens, New York City. Owned by the New York City Housing Authority, the development contains 29 buildings and 3,142 u ...

, the district of New York where Nas grew up. Whilst filming the video, Goldwatch wanted to make the imagery featured in the scenes where Nas visited Queensbridge as realistic as possible: thus, he sent scouts to find real homeless people, as well as old women and

drug addict Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to engage in certain behaviors, one of which is the usage of a drug, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use oft ...

s, that could appear in the video.

Synopsis

The video begins inside a limousine, with Nas' face hidden in shadow. The limousine is then seen travelling through New York City, and shots of Nas' journey – which he is undertaking with two women – are alternated with those of him in a recording studio, performing "Nasty". Upon arriving at the district of Queensbridge, Queen, Nas exits the limousine and walks through the area, observing the life of the inhabitants, which includes some playing a game of

craps Craps is a dice game in which players bet on the outcomes of the roll of a pair of dice. Players can wager money against each other (playing "street craps") or against a bank ("casino craps"). Because it requires little equipment, "street ...

. After greeting many of the inhabitants and walking with a group of children for a short period, Nas enters the main apartment complex of Queensbridge. He locates a particular room and greets the tenants: after observing them for a while, he walks into a room which is shown to be the recording studio seen earlier in the video.

Track listing

; Digital download # "Nasty" – 3:04

Credits and personnel

The credits for "Nasty" are adapted from the liner notes of ''Life Is Good''. ;Recording * Recorded at: Instrument Zoo Studios in

. ;Personnel * Nas –

songwriting A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music gen ...

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or withou ...

– songwriting,

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...

, bass, keys,

, drums * Gleyder Disla –

recording A record, recording or records may refer to: An item or collection of data Computing * Record (computer science), a data structure ** Record, or row (database), a set of fields in a database related to one entity ** Boot sector or boot record, r ...

* Manny Marroquin – mixing * Erik Madrid –

mix engineer A mixing engineer (or simply mix engineer) is responsible for combining ("mixing") different sonic elements of an auditory piece into a complete rendition (also known as "final mix" or "mixdown"), whether in music, film, or any other content of a ...

* Chris Galland – assistant mixer * Big Kap – additional vocals * Chris Gehringer – mastering

Release history

References

{{Nas singles 2011 singles Nas songs Songs written by Nas Song recordings produced by Salaam Remi Songs written by Salaam Remi Music videos directed by Jason Goldwatch