Marcy Me

Album: 4:44 (2017)
Charted: 90
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Songfacts®:

  • Here, Jay-Z looks back to upbringing in the Marcy Houses public housing project located in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. He explained to iHeart radio:

    "'Marcy Me' is a nostalgic walk through Marcy, and it's about that hopefulness, that feeling of 'Man, can I really do this? Can I really be one of the biggest artists in the world?' You have these dreams, 'Can I be one of the biggest basketball players?' We have these dreams."
  • The piano groove featured on the track is a sample of Portuguese progressive rock band Quarteto 1111's 1970 track "Todo O Mundo E Ninguém."
  • The-Dream croons the outro. Other collaboration between the pair include uncredited vocals by the singer-songwriter on the Watch the Throne track "No Church in The Wild" and a guest verse by Jay on The-Dream's 2013 song "High Art."
  • At the beginning of the track, Jay-Z pays homage to Notorious B.I.G by reciting his opening lines from his Ready to Die cut "Unbelievable":

    Live from Bedford-Stuyvesant, the livest one
    Representing BK to the fullest
    Gats I pull it
    Bastards duckin' when Big be bucking
    Chickenheads be clucking in my bathroom, f---ing


    Bedford-Stuyvesant is a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. Jay Z and Biggie Smalls were schoolmates in George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School in downtown Brooklyn. They rap battled each other during lunch breaks.

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