| "Back in the Day" | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Missy Elliott featuring Jay-Z | |||||||||||
| from the album Under Construction | |||||||||||
| Released | 2003 | ||||||||||
| Format | Digital download 12" single |
||||||||||
| Recorded | 2002 | ||||||||||
| Genre | Hip hop | ||||||||||
| Length | 4:02 | ||||||||||
| Label | Goldmind | ||||||||||
| Writer(s) | Tim Mosley, Shawn Carter, and Missy Elliott | ||||||||||
| Producer | Timbaland | ||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
"Back in the Day" is a 2003 hip-hop song by Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott, featuring guest vocals from Jay-Z and Elliott protégé Tweet. The song appears on her 2002 album Under Construction and was at one time planned for release as a single. (It peaked at #86 on Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart in 2003 before being scrapped as a single.)
Contents |
About the song
Produced by Elliott's main producer and longtime collaborator Timbaland, "Back In The Day" is an ode to the classic era of old school hip-hop, when the hip-hop culture was, Elliott sings, fun and peaceful, compared to the more violent scope of modern-day hip-hop. "Back in the day/hip-hop has changed", she sings. During the bridge of the song she even makes a point of referencing "Self-Destruction", a 1989 collaborative benefit single for peace featuring a number of that era's hip-hop stars. Incidentally, MC Lyte's verse from "Self-Destruction" is sampled on another of Under Construction's album tracks, "Funky Fresh Dressed".
Jay-Z contributes a rap verse in which he creatively references a number of hip-hop artists (for example, stating "I kill at will like solid water, dude", a reference to Ice Cube's 1990 EP Kill At Will). At one point during his verse, Jay-Z raps "so fuck Chuck Phillips and Bill O'Reilly/if they try to stop hip-hop, we all gon' rally", a reference to two of hip-hop's most vocal critics.
"Back in the Day" references
Below is a list of old-school hip-hop people and items Elliott and Jay-Z namedrop in "Back in the Day":
Hip-hop fashions
Dances
Hip-hop artists
- Salt-N-Pepa
- Rakim
- Run DMC
- Big Daddy Kane
- Heavy D
- Slick Rick
- MC Lyte
- Dr Dre
- LL Cool J
- Public Enemy
- M.O.P
- Tag Team
- Ice Cube
- Notorious B.I.G.
- 2Pac
- KRS-One
- EPMD
Credits
- Lead Vocals by Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott and Jay-Z
- Background Vocals by Tweet
- Whistle by Timbaland
- Written by Melissa Elliott, Timothy Mosley, and Sean Carter
- Produced by Timbaland for Timbaland Productions; Co-produced by Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
