If I Ruled the World (Imagine That) (feat. Lauryn Hill)

This song is a reworking of Kurtis Blow's 1985 old-school rap classic "If I Ruled The World." In the original version, Kurtis tells a story about becoming king, working to bring peace and eradicate poverty. In Nas' version he focuses on injustice in the Black community. If he ruled the world, there'd be equal opportunity and justice, and he'd start by releasing prisoners: I'd open every cell in Attica send 'em to Africa

Lauryn Hill, who was 21 years old when she recorded it, sings the hook. Nas told Rolling Stone magazine about their collaboration: "When Lauryn Hill came to mind, it was just right on time. It's funny, because when we released the record, people didn't know it was Lauryn Hill, because I guess we just white-labeled it at first and didn't want anybody to know - anticipation for my second album was so great, we didn't want any distractions from people to keep them from listening to me. At that point, the Fugees album had just come out and blew up, so we left her name off of it, and for about two to three weeks, by the time we let people know who was on the record, it was already taking off. So when they found out it was her, forget about it, man. Forget about it."

This was produced by the production duo known as The Trackmasters (also known as Poke & Tone). Among their other production credits are "Hey Lover" for LL Cool J, "Gettin' Jiggy Wit It" and "Men In Black" for Will Smith and "Fiesta" for R Kelly. Nas explained to Rolling Stone magazine why he hooked up with them: "'If I Ruled the World,' that's when I teamed up with Trackmaster, and I figured I needed a change, so I teamed up with the best at the time, and they cut the track together and just needed someone to sing the chorus."