Vince Staples has apparently heard for a while now that both he and Nas have songs that feature personified guns, so he finally decided to see what all the fuss was about.
On Thursday (January 4), the Long Beach rappr tweeted that he was about to listen for the first time to Nas’ 1996 track “I Gave You Power” — which, like his 2022 number “When Sparks Fly,” contains sections spoken from the voice of a firearm.
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(Staples’ song switches perspectives, with the first verse featuring the gun’s owner speaking to it, and the gun speaking in the second; in Nas’ track, the gun is the narrator the entire time).
“Finna listen to this Nas ‘I Gave You Power’ since y’all keep talking about it in regards to the power ballad that is ‘When Sparks Fly’. Stay tuned,” he wrote.
10 minutes later, Vince was back with his review — and a suggestion to boot: “[T]his was a good tune. He shoulda put Ghostface on here.”
The 30-year-old received some puzzled responses from fans who were surprised that he hadn’t already heard the track.
“You n-ggas are utterly ridiculous if you think I was revisiting album cuts from 1996 as a child when ‘Made You Look’ was out,” replied Vince, who turned three the day the album containing “I Gave You Power,” It Was Written, was released.
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In response to another user who said they were “just surprised cause It Was Written a classic and Nas a goat is all,” he reminded them of his West Coast heritage by referencing Mac Dre: “Dreganomics is also a classic. Have you heard it?”
Over the years, “I Gave You Power” has been praised by Hip Hop stars like 50 Cent and J. Cole. The latter explained the song’s impact on him during a speech at the 2014 VIBE Impact Awards.
Cole said that when he heard the song for the first time, he gave up the preconceived bias toward West Coast rap and became a Nas fan forever.
“A lightbulb went off and I knew right there that, ‘Oh my God. This n-gga’s the greatest,’” he said when recalling the first time his older cousin played Nas for him in the car. “All the fronting I was doing just came to a cease and I knew that this was something I was so thankful to be aware of.”
Revisit “I Gave You Power” and “When Sparks Fly” below.
