Reach Out
by Nas

Album: Life Is Good (2012)
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Songfacts®:

  • This song features the voice of Mary J. Blige, who is returning the favor after Nas rapped on her 2011 track, "Feel Inside." The Queen of Hip-Hop Soul sings snippets from DJ Hotday's Hip-Hop remix of New Edition's Running Scared soundtrack single, "Once In a Lifetime Groove." "I remember buying it from a flea market," Nas told UK newspaper The Guardian. "When I hear Mary singing, I'm taken back to late '80s New York - to Queens, to Harlem, to the rest of the boroughs."

    He continued: "It was storytelling, and it was super local – when you heard a record from Brooklyn, it introduced you to Brooklyn in a way nothing else could do. When hip-hop was smaller, this is how we found out about different places – and that still lives in all of us who love Hip-Hop."
  • This samples the piano loop from Isaac Hayes' "Ike's Mood I" and DJ Hollywood's "Hollywood's World."

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