Songfacts®:

• This song created a great deal of controversy for Diddy (known at the time as Puff Daddy) when he appeared in the video on a cross. Diddy ordered the scene removed before the video aired, but the wrong edit was sent to MTV, and it aired with his crucifixion scene in place. Diddy reacted by going to the office of Nas' manager Steve Stoute and hitting him over the head with a champagne bottle. Stoute sued, and the incident provided another example of real-life violence in the rap community.
• This contains a sample from "Carmina Burana" by Carl Orff. >>>

  Suggestion credit:
  Donovan Berry - El Dorado, AR, for above 2
• This was originally a track that D-Moet did for Foxy Brown, but she didn't like it. As Nas felt it fitted on well with his I Am... record, he recorded it instead.
• Nas recalled to Rolling Stone magazine his collaboration with Puff Daddy and the controversy over the Hype Williams-directed video: "It sounded perfect for Puff to be on, so I gave it to him, went to the studio, and he rocked it, knocked it out. I wanted him to talk that s--t on there, because that 'Victory' record was my favorite record, with him and B.I.G., and I just wanted him to talk some of his s--t on there. I had him screaming a whole bunch of wild s--t on here, and cats were slam-dancing to it in New York. It was really crazy, out of this world. At that point, I started wearing a huge chain, and I think me and Puff at that point started that bling s--t and took it to the next level, and we did the video, and it was out of this world. There's a play in New York City where a black man played Jesus, and caught a lot of flak. I think, even the mayor at the time, Giuliani, was against it. So my thing was I wanted to be crucified like Jesus in the video, to get back at all those people that don't want to see a black man doing his thing. Me and Puff got hammered to the cross, but after Puff expressed his religious beliefs and speaking to his pastor, he wasn't ready to take that stance, so it was really my idea anyway, so we took his part out. For some reason, I think [his former manager] Steve Stoute let it fly with Puffy still being crucified to the cross, so there was that fight at the office, where Puff jumped on Steve or some s--t like that. Both of them were friends of mine, so I kind of stepped in and squashed the whole thing, and it's all in the past. Just growing pains. We were all growing up. That brings back a lot of memories. Even when I throw it on now onstage, it still kills."