The FT Top 100 Songs Of All Time No. 71
Jay-Z - “The Takeover”
Joe M says:
The Jay-Z attack on Nas in ‘Takeover’ is a masterpiece because he acknowledges that Illmatic was a great album, and even that another unspecified Nas album was insert equivocal hand-wavering gesture here okay. Then he adds “That’s a one hot album every ten year average”. This is pretty much the accepted wisdom on Nas: that he made one of the best debuts in hip hop history and never achieved that level of quality again. Saying this, rather than saying “You are shit in every way” as some rappers are prone to do on diss records, made at least a large part of Jay’s attack on Nas very hard to refute.
Andrew F says:
(The Takeover is) a near-perfect diss record, through disrespect into dismissal. Where most rappers come up with a good insult or two and off to the studio, this is pleasingly thorough, covering the target’s past, sexuality, street cred, business sense and basic rapping ability (”Yeah I sampled your voice, you were using it wrong”). It’s magnimanious in victory - Jay-Z has no problem saying that Nas has released two great albums, as long as he has made more and greater. And still, better to be the target of all this than the multitude brushed aside in the last line.
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Jon on October 10th, 2006
I assume that it is a mid-Seventies production. The label is from Hollywood. And that is about it. (PATNOX.COM)
bridget on December 31st, 2006
i think the takeovers what ever that is i really think its stupid people post all shit on the internet and its just stupid if any 1 agreeds with me leave a comment !!!!!!!!!!!!!! .
Gemma on June 9th, 2007
Takeover is a brilliant diss song. Nas’ reply, Ether, is overrated because Nas has a good flow. However, Jay-Z has always been better in the lyrics department. When you compare the two tracks, Jay-Z makes a good assault on Nas including facts you can’t ignore like the fact that Jay-Z sold more of his album in 1 week than Nas sold of his altogether. Also, when you look at the lyrics of Ether, Nas calls Jay-Z “Gay-Z” and Rocafella “Cockafella” which isn’t exactly profound. Jay-Z rounds it off with production from Kanye West which always guarantees a good song.
ya boy on April 20th, 2008
kanye is wack jay-z is wack nas is hot but the best rapper ever is LIL WAYNE all day then cassidy then jadakiss and no bridget your gay