
N.O.R.E. has denied Carmen Bryan’s sexual assault allegations
The rapper’s attorney has called the claims in Bryan’s civil lawsuit “entirely false”.
Cruz Beckham
About This Track
Nas constructs a narrative of street violence and police corruption across Queens, built from accumulated detail and witness testimony. A cop known for aggressive pursuit through the projects becomes the target of a planned ambush, his movements tracked through the neighbourhood and his personal life exposed. The story unfolds through overlapping voices: Nas as observer and participant, a woman caught between the law and the street, accomplices coordinating the hit. The specificity accumulates weight. Names, locations, physical descriptions, the mechanics of surveillance and betrayal all compress into a single moment of violence. The song operates as testimony rather than confession. Nas moves between past tense recollection and present-tense narration, between what he heard and what he witnessed, maintaining a distance even as he describes complicity. The production sits sparse and propulsive beneath the narrative, letting the words carry the full weight of the account. What emerges is less a glorification of violence than a portrait of a system where police brutality and street retaliation feed each other, where survival means knowing the patterns of power and being willing to disrupt them. The final lines pull back to philosophy: 'It Was Written, but was never told', suggesting that these stories exist outside official record, preserved only in street knowledge and memory.
"Shootouts" is a track by Nas, from the album It Was Written (Expanded Edition), released 1st July 2021. The track is 3:46 long. It's filed under Hip-Hop/Rap. Full lyrics are available below. Dork has published 1 article about Nas.
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The rapper’s attorney has called the claims in Bryan’s civil lawsuit “entirely false”.

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