My 1st Song by JAY-Z Song Info
“My 1st Song” is the final track on Jay-Z’s 2003 retirement album which finds Hov using a "Reasonable Doubt"-era flow. The concept of the track was inspired by the Biggie interview sampled at the top, with Hov recording it in a mindset of it being his first ever song: "That’s actually the last song on the album, but it’s really the first song. It’s about having the same focus throughout your whole career, about me treating my first song like my last and my last song like my first." Co-produced by Aqua and 3H, the song samples 1969’s “Tu y Tu Mirar…Yo y Mi Canción” by the Los Angeles Negros. “My 1st Song” was the first production credit for New York native Nicholas “Aqua” McCarrell: "One of the coolest parts about [the song] it is that it’s entitled ‘My 1st Song.’ There’s a lot of underlying symbolic meaning going on." In an interview in 2012 President Barack Obama named the track one of his favorite’s from Hov’s discography: "Stuff like ‘My 1st Song’ keeps me steady. It’s a great song. It reminds you that you always have to stay hungry."
