Nas admitted that his life was similar but flipped it and used the same rap as a vehicle to get out of his own circumstances because the experiences he had were the content to his debut album as he harnessed his rap skills. Kids Nas age was probably warned by the people around them to stay in school or else you might end up similar to what happened in The Message. Grandmaster Flash's The Message ends the song with the lost youth in jail as he committed suicide because he was a rape victim as the chorus repeats, 'It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder, how I keep from going under'ДЄnd Nas' response is that he WAS that at-risk kid as depicted in 'The Message' who cut class and smoked reefer and had the possibility of going to jail once he turned to the street life because of the lack of options, but instead Nas self-educated himself and made it out his environment by having to rap his experiences. Nas did a whole song on 'One Love' writing to his friends in jail telling them there's a brighter future to look forward to In broad daylight, stick-up kids, they run up on us Turned stick-up kid, but look what you done did I knew the dopes, the pushers, the addicts, everybody Nas on 'street dreams' is more of a MC Lyte line but close enough Thugs, pimps and pushers and the big money-makers The hardest thing is to forgive, but God doesД®ven if you murdered or robbed, yeah it's wrong, but God loves God is smiling on you, but he's frowning tooД«ecause only God knows what you'll go through State of Mind' and he was a child on the cover in front of his projects, which is basically a response to that last verse, where Nas IS that child but with a NY State of Mind Oh shit.what does that remind you of? Nas ALBUM COVER on Illmatic.Nas made 'N.Y. Socks to my knees, home-made shorts, cut off Lee's I never had a summer job, sweeping leaves If I just got a job, learned to be a street sweeper They was paid just to show up and leave, no one succeedsДЄnd all the kids smoke reefer, I think it'd be cheaperД¬ut out of class just to smoke blunts and drink noddy Junior high school dropout, teachers never cared Nas dropped out of school in the 9th grade and has plenty of rhymes against the school system but the best example is on '2nd Childhood': 'Cause the teacher's a jerk, he must think I'm a foolД«ut then you wind up droppin' out of high school My son said, 'Daddy, I don't wanna go to school Sometimes I think I'm going insane, I swear I might hijack a plane The type of nigga who be pissing in your elevator People pissing on the stairs, you know they just donвЂ™t care

Nas lyrics illmatic