I’m Leaving - Intellectual

[Verse 1: Noreaga]

Yo, N.O.R.E. know this, and N.O.R.E. know that

Yo, but N.O.R.E. know gat, why? 'Cause N.O.R.E. buck dat!

Iraq'll make you famous

Throwin' gang signs like it's sign language

Distinguish us from the others, kidnap your baby mothers

Bringin' drama to the deep covers

Salute, G, bust you down like a loosey

José probably lay with a gold Uzi

Conquer Italy, Africa and Sicily

Them niggas actin' sissy, see? Pointin' guns and missin' me

(Yo, son, it's on, son) A-yo, there's beef in the hood again

Niggas came with hoods again, thinkin' that it would've been squashed

From what we first did, when we did

Now we twist another wig, a mother lose another kid

But it's beef now, keep it short, real brief now

Strike vigorous, no intentions of missin' it

They sent the message, or example, whatever

Set it up, man on man, won't even score, we apply the plan

Quickly explain why you ran in this dark land

We lay you down in the sand, on the lines like the internet

Many will come, but few was chosen

Against my set, there ain't a nigga yet

Smoke so much, niggas say I need Nicorette

You say bogie, but you used to say cigarette

Dunn know, a new religion, a new beginning

[Hook]

I'm leaving

(Baby, don't go, I know the block is hot, boo, I'll watch your spot)

I'm leaving

(Sweetie, don't leave, I need you to stay with me, come back)

Uh-huh, uhhhh, uhhhh

I'm leaving

(Boo, I can't understand)

And don't think that I'll be back again

[Verse 2: Nature]

It's like a bad dream, and I can't wake up

Mouth caked up, knowin' these cats is fake fucks

And it ain't right, with no love, them hugs ain't tight

Son, we used to pop bottles and slugs the same night

[Verse 3: Noreaga]

Yo, a-yo, they left me, right hand damaged and I ain't lefty

Couldn't bust what I's supposed to pull

What I'm supposed to do?

Lay down? Watch these niggas spray me?

Or maybe we strike accurate, blaze them plus they ladies

[Verse 4: Nature]

I would've never thought we'd ever get caught in this way of life

Prosecution, if you violate a playa's rights

Say it twice, Nature soon to be engraved in ice

Hangin' off my neck, glistens like it's framed in light

[Verse 5: Noreaga]

The most call me José

Shootin' the Arty Clay/Benedict Arnold type

Gettin' this rap loot, still sellin' China White

Either Allah or Christ

Married to marijuana , now my niggas don't write

No ice, still livin' this life..

[Hook]

I'm leaving

(Baby, don't go, I know the block is hot, boo, I'll watch your spot)

I'm leaving

(Sweetie, don't leave, I need you to stay with me, come back)

Uh-huh, uhhhh, uhhhh

I'm leaving

(Boo, I can't understand)

And don't think that I'll be back again

[Verse 6: Nature]

You got the nerve to say that Nature's slippin'?

The greatest vision

Bald-head kid, Cartier frames , the latest Pippen's

Doggy-style was my favorite position

Until I switched it, dead shit, got on some head shit

Headed in the wrong direction up in the Sheraton

QB to L.A., still puffin' my medicine

For those lost in the streets, Up North or deceased

For those strugglin' or fortunate to eat

I dedicate this, tell me right now — how do you rate this?

Whatever happened to the mule and the 40 acres ?

It's outrageous, the way the God finesse the basics

Invasion, me and Noreaga — Firm made men

Play on words. When you share a cigarette with someone, you’re giving them a “bust down”. One cigarette is called a loosey. So you better salute or you’re gettin busted down.

Forty acres and a mule is part of Special Field Orders No. 15, a wartime order proclaimed by Union General William Tecumseh Sherman on January 16, 1865, during the American Civil War, to allot of land to some freed slave families, in plots of land no larger than 40 acres.

At the time, Scotty Pippen was still playing in the NBA and had his signature shoe released….15 years later the very shoe was re-released as a retro throwback

A reference to Prodigy’s second verse on A+’s track gusto, Prodigy initially made that verse for the 1995 track eye for an eye but decided to make another verse for that track, he used the leftover verse in 1996 on gusto.

This is an interpolation of Phife Dawg’s opening bars on A Tribe Called Quest’s 1991 hit “Scenario”:

Heyo, Bo knows this, and Bo knows that
But Bo don’t know jack, cause Bo can’t rap

Nore shoots at traitor’s/snitches and people that don’t respect his criminal/mafioso status.

One of Nore’s first Solo cuts before CNN.

Nore is right handed, so he couldn’t properly draw and shoot with his left hand.

Noreaga was such a heavy, committed cigarette smoker that he started wearing an iced-out Newport box (renamed “Noreports”) on his chain in 2008.

So it came as a shock when, in 2011, Nore decided he was finally quitting cigarettes (a.k.a. “bogeys”). He didn’t chew Nicorette gum, but he was shown wearing a nicotine patch in a video interview, where he talked to Ja Rule about how it made him feel:

I feel like I smoked a bogey. It gives you 24 hours [of nicotine], but I take it off at night. In the morning time I try not to put it on, cause I want to hold it down on my own as long as I can.”

Unfortunately, he couldn’t kick the habit. In 2013, Nore challenged Joe Budden to a cigarette smoke off. He was also seen smoking cigarettes in a video interview with FobezDVD, where he talked about wanting to quit and regretting the Newport chain:

That’s probably, like, singlehandedly my most embarrassing moment. Just walking around white people and they just looking at the chain like…nigga got a Newport chain iced out? I felt bad about it. I felt ignorant. When I did it it was fly, it was dope. I was trying to be ignorant. I had to get rid of it.

Then, in 2014, N.O.R.E. told HipHopDX that he had quit smoking again and tweeted:

Things were looking good for Nore’s lungs! But it still seems like he’s getting his fix—in 2015, he partnered with an e-cigarette company to produce his own flavor of liquid nicotine called “N.O.R.E. Shorts.”

Sadly, the struggle never ends for an addict. In May 2015, Nore got drunk, bought a pack of Newports, and uploaded an instagram video of himself guiltily smoking a cigarette. Maybe it’s finally time for him to try that Nicorette?

Nore has being calling cigarettes bogies in pretty much every song ever since he first appeared on the rap scene, so you could say he helped to further popularize the term.

One of Nore’s aliases is José Luis Gatcha, named after colombian drug lord José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha

Nore echoes his words from The War Report’s “Parole Violators”:

My rap loot, I still shoot
Ask Iraq

As with those lines, Jose Luis continues his illegal life activity despite his commercial success as an entertainer.

It’s much easier and less tiring to just laid back and get some head, so Nature doesn’t even bothers actually having sex.

Nature definitely was repping the “intellectual thug” style in the late 90’s.