{"id":218203,"date":"2025-09-11T13:00:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T13:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/218203\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T13:00:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T13:00:17","slug":"mamdani-dipset-and-the-greatest-new-york-anthem-that-never-was","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/218203\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani, Dipset, and the Greatest New York Anthem that Never Was"},"content":{"rendered":"

With all due respect to \u201cEmpire State of Mind,\u201d that\u2019s a hook that should be as ubiquitously associated with New York elitism as Alicia Keys. That Jay-Z intro? \u201cWelcome to the Empire State, home of the World Trade. Birthplace of Michael Jordan. Home of Biggie Smalls. Roc-A-Fella headquarters\u2026Brooklyn\u2026Harlem World: Stand the fuck up!\u201d It\u2019s enough to make you want to run the New York Marathon, or maybe run through a wall. It should have rung out at Yankees parades. How criminal is it that the song wasn\u2019t performed live for the first time until 17 years later, at Jay-Z\u2019s B-Sides 2 concert, where he formally buried the hatchet with Cam on stage at Webster Hall?<\/p>\n

Jay and Cam\u2019s issues stemmed from Jay\u2019s larger friction with Roc-A-Fella cofounder Dame Dash, who\u2019d spearheaded Cam and the Diplomats\u2019 inclusion on the label. Even with that static, Jay agreed to hop on this thunderous Just Blaze beat\u2014and the contentious energy actually spilled over. Jim Jones once recounted the session as if he were retelling an ancient myth, describing Cam and Jay literally going back and forth in the booth, hardly speaking in between and clearly trying to one-up each other after hearing their respective verses.<\/p>\n

The result is Killa sounding as locked in as ever on what still reigns as his best album, and one of my favorite Jay-Z verses of all time: \u201cI ain\u2019t hard to find, catch me front and center\/at the Knick<\/a> game, big chain in all my splendor\/Next to Spike if you pan left to right\u2026 once again if you pan left the device it be the man that write checks with the hand that don\u2019t write.\u201d BK Brawler ended up becoming my AIM screename.<\/p>\n

In a recent episode of his TalkWithFlea podcast, Cam spoke to Roc stalwart Memphis Bleek, reflecting on their Roc days, how they both could\u2019ve managed the tension better, and the higher heights they might\u2019ve climbed if there wasn\u2019t any. To wit, after the song was out and running radio, Cam excitedly asked Jay about shooting a video and got the cold shoulder. Bleek laughed, explaining that Jay-Z hated doing videos and only really committed to them out of necessity. Why would he do one for someone he might\u2019ve felt a way towards?<\/p>\n

At least we got the performance, even if it was nearly two decades later. With maturity and wisdom, clearer heads have since prevailed with Cam and Jay realizing they don\u2019t have much of an issue worth still stewing over so who knows, maybe we\u2019ll see it performed again one day. But a more likely proposition: Zohran should absolutely walk out to \u201cWelcome to New York City\u201d for his victory speech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With all due respect to \u201cEmpire State of Mind,\u201d that\u2019s a hook that should be as ubiquitously associated…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":218204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,392,171,975,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,80,5342,5096,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,1940],"class_list":{"0":"post-218203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-culture","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-music","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-newyork","15":"tag-newyorkcity","16":"tag-ny","17":"tag-nyc","18":"tag-politics","19":"tag-rappers","20":"tag-textbelowcenterfullbleed","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-usa","27":"tag-web"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115185793405457386","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}