Back in the Day (2002 song)

"Back in the Day" is also a 1994 single by Ahmad.

"Back in the Day" is a 2002 hip hop/R&B song by Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott, featuring guest vocals from Jay-Z and Elliott protégé Tweet. The song appears on her 2002 LP Under Construction and was at one time planned for release as a single.

Contents

1 About the song

2 "Back in the Day" references

2.1 Hip hop fashions
2.2 Dances
2.3 Hip hop artists

3 Credits

About the song

Produced by Elliott's main producer and longtime collaborator Timbaland, Back in the Day is an ode to the classic era of old school hip hop, when the hip hop culture was, Elliott sings, fun and peaceful, compared to the more violent scope of modern-day hip hop. Back in the day/hip hop has changed, she sings. During the bridge of the song she even makes a point of referencing Self-Destruction, a 1989 collaborative benefit single for peace featuring a number of that era's hip-hop stars. Incidentally, MC Lyte's verse from Self-Destruction is sampled on another of Under Construction's album tracks, Funky Fresh Dressed.

Jay-Z contributes a rap verse in which he creatively name drops a number of hip-hop artists (for example, stating "I kill at will like solid water, dude", a reference to Ice Cube's 1990 LP Kill at Will). At one point during his verse, Jay-Z raps "so fuck Chuck Phillips and Bill O'Reilly/if they try to stop hip-hop, we all gon' rally", a reference to of hip-hop's most vocal critics.