One Love (Nas song)

"One Love"
Single by Nas featuring Q-Tip
from the album Illmatic
Released	October 25, 1994
Recorded	1993
Genre	East Coast hip hop alternative hip hop jazz rap
Length	5:26
Label	Columbia
Songwriter(s)	Nasir Jones Jonathan Davis Jimmy Heath
Producer(s)	Q-Tip
Nas singles chronology
"The World Is Yours" (1994) "One Love" (1994) "Fast Life" (1995)
Q-Tip singles chronology
"Buddy" (1989) "One Love" (1994) "Got 'til It's Gone" (1997)
Music video
"One Love" on YouTube

"One Love" is a song by American rapper Nas, released October 25, 1994 on Columbia Records. It was issued as the fifth and final radio single in promotion of his debut studio album Illmatic (1994). The song was produced by Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest, who also contributed vocals for the chorus line. According to Nas, the title of the song originates from Jamaican singer-songwriter and musician Bob Marley's song of the same name.

"One Love" is composed as a series of letters written by Nas to his incarcerated friends, describing events that have occurred prior to and after the receivers' imprisonment. "One Love" contains samples of the Heath Brothers' "Smilin' Billy Suite Part II" (1975) and Parliament's "Come in out the Rain" (1970), along with an interpolation of Whodini's One Love (1986). In the song's first verse, Nas references fellow Queensbridge emcee Cormega, whose rapping career had been put on hold due to his incarceration during the early 1990s. In 2008, VH1 named "One Love" the forty-eighth greatest hip hop song.^[1]