Song Background
The song is called “The Don” in homage to The Godfather’s 40th anniversary (Nas' favorite film). The hard hitting, grimy dancehall tinged production is credited to Salaam Remi, Da Internz and Heavy D and contains multiple Supa Cat samples from “Dance Inna New York:”
I have also found this amazing lyrics website that provides definitions but also translates the songs lyrics into laymans terms and makes it very easy to grasp an understanding of all the terms but also emotions.
I think the whole song would be quite dificult to visually represent because there is so much actually happening in the song. I want to try and focus on one section of the song to make it easier but the section will have to encapsulate the song and it's meaning therefore I think the chorus will probably work best because i's the message that is constantly repeated throughout the song.
'Nas the Don, Nas the Don, Nas the Don,
Nas the DonNas the Don, Nas the Don, Nas the Don, Nas the Don
Inna New York City, inna New York City
Inna New York City, inna New York City'
The chorus is pretty straight forward and simple because there are two statements that seem to reiterated 'Nas the Don' and Inna New York City'. I think the next step from here would be to first of all look at the existing artwork and see how the original artist approached it. But then I need to look into visual representations of the don and new york city as well 7"single sleeves that use imagery instead of words to convey the message of the song.
The Original Cover
This is the original single cover for the song, when I initially looked at it I couldn't grasp what it represented. But after a lot of thinking and staring the ring seems to be the focus because it's the only thing in colour but also because it is so big compared to his finger, this accompanied with the image of his firmly placed down and the cuff of a suit being shown I interpreted the cover to signify power and control similar to that of a Don.