Whose world is this? Geographic references in Nas’ lyrics

Nas has always been one of my favorite emcees. Not only was I a fan of his music, listening made me want to participate. Hearing “Nas is Like” for the first time was a definitive moment of my coming up: Nas’ vocals complementing DJ Premier’s production and scratches made me want to write rhymes and get busy on the turntables. He’s a legend in the game and you’ll be hard pressed to find someone that doesn’t have him on their top emcees list. There’s no doubt that I can’t have a hip-hop atlas without deconstructing the lyrics of the God Nas.

This is my second artist-themed map and I’m building this ship while piloting it, so first I’d like to revisit my “rules” in creating it to have a standard method of comparing emcees.

1. Use lyrics from studio albums only. No mixtapes, freestyles, nor feature verses on songs by others. This isn’t to discredit the significance of those projects, but to manage the workload.
2. Note unique geographic places: countries, US states, cities (domestic and international), and unique places (domestic and international). Unique places can be buildings or neighborhoods.
3. No rights of way (highways, streets, etc). Intersections can be included as unique places.
4. Do not count the same place twice.

	Countries	US States	US Cities	International Cities	US Places	International Places	Total
Lupe Fiasco	28	9	20	14	4	2	77
Nas	42	16	29	13	32	3	135

Lupe Fiasco set the baseline with 77 references. Nas almost doubled that with 135! In his lyrics Nas calls out 42 countries, 16 US states, 42 cities, and 35 unique places. His lyrics span the globe with concentrations in western Europe, central Africa to the Middle East, and southeast Asia.

In the US, Nas’ lyrics focus east of the Mississippi and especially in the greater NYC area. You can create a New York City tour of landmarks just off of Nas songs! I would love to see it, and if anyone in his camp wants to put it together I’m happy to share my data with you.

One unique shout out: prisons. “A Message to the Feds, Sincerely We the People” is a powerful song that calls out the prison industrial complex. Nas lists seven federal prisons (he has a total of 9 jails and prisons across his body of work), asking us to “pour some juice out” so we never forget those we’ve lost to an unjust justice system.

135 references is now the bar. Who should I do next? Who do you think can top it?

Omissions:
-I used some discretion on the NYC-specific references. There were a few that seemed redundant, such as small areas within a neighborhood already referenced. I think I’m going to incorporate all of the NYC references in one map in the future: there are enough sites to do a city tour just based on Nas songs (NAS IF YOUR PEOPLE ARE READING THIS I’M WILLING TO SHARE THE DATA ON THE STRENGTH).