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"Pray": American Gangster's first cut, one of several produced by none other than Sean "Diddy" Combs — whom Jay still calls "Puffy," harkening back to days long past when both were members of the late Notorious B.I.G.'s circle. "[The album] starts with a kid looking into the game," Jay explained. The beat slams ominously behind his scene-setting rhymes: "Mindstate of a gangster from the '40s/Meets the business mind of Motown's Berry Gordy."

"No Hook": Another wide-screen Puff production, full of dark organ vibes, and more rhymes from an aspiring kingpin's perspective: "F---rich, let's get wealthy/Who else gon' feed we?" The mood is sneering, hungry, with Jay almost seeming to slip into his long-abandoned double-time flow at times.

"Roc Boys": "That's him at his height," Jay said of his persona in this song. "It's a celebration of the whole s---." Exultant horns burst out on the beat (Puffy again) as the rapper revels in a lifestyle funded by ill-gotten riches: "First of all, I wanna thank my connect/The most important person, with all due respect/...Think rosé/Think O.J./I get away with murder when I sling yey'." (The song also includes a reference to "black bar mitzvahs." Maybe that "L'chaim" was even more significant than I realized.)