“Young G's” was the second song Jay-Z and Biggie ever recorded together, and it would also be the last. Released on Puffy’s solo debut, No Way Out, just a few months after Biggie’s still-unsolved murder, the record marks a painful moment in time.

“Biggie pushed me to go harder,” Jay writes of this song in the the new afterword to the expanded paperback edition of Decoded. Upon hearing this song, or the aptly named “Brooklyn’s Finest,” even a casual listener can sense that there was a special bond between the two BK legends, seasoned though it was with a healthy dose of competition.

Jay’s decoding of his virtuoso verse from “Young Gs” had us rewinding this ’97 classic from the top. With each play we gained new appreciation for Biggie’s verse—which opens with a line interpolated from the Biz Markie classic “The Vapors”—as well as Puffy’s—which almost certainly flowed from B.I.G.’s pen. But don’t worry if Puff writes rhymes; he writes checks!

Who better to make sense of these hip-hop hieroglyphics than dream hampton, the original decoder herself? Lyrically she’s supposed to represent. So check it...

Written by dream hampton (@dreamhampton)

Puff Daddy f/ The Notorious B.I.G. & Jay-Z “Young G’s” (1997)

Verse One: Puff Daddy
Out of this world like Mars when I spit these bars
Come fuck with these stars up in luxury cars
We built them radars to stay free from the cops
Crucial choices to make, like AC or the drop?¹
Are we gon’ stop?
Shit man, if my squad go broke
Your squad oughta choke
Watch your circle vanish like cigar smoke
Ain't no joke, when your ones don't show
Nigga I know, might say 'Been There Done That' like Dre²
Through hard work I earned the vault
Promise God to never look back or I turn to salt³
Got nice watches, nice cars, nice bitches and rings⁴
Guess it's safe to say a nigga like me got nice things
Can't relate to motherfuckers who ain't go no cake
When you all fucked up, and can't get no break
When your fake-ass friends don't help you out when you need it
Be on some real bullshit, politely tell you to beat it
Fuck that, get your own nigga,
Don't ask me for shit⁵
That's what I did, now they all askin’ for hits
Nigga it's on for the simple fact I let it be known
We still fly⁶ but separately cause now I, charter my own
Propellers,
Goodfellas, leave all them playa-haters jealous
Billboard charts should tell us,
They can't touch us
Why niggaz bring the ruckus?
Because release day is bigger than Mandela's⁷
Motherfuckers

1. Should he stay cool by turning on the air-conditioning or just drop the top on his convertible?

2. There's not another hip-hop album that was more influential to Puff than Dr. Dre's The Chronic. His own productions referenced and were inspired by that album's ambitiously cinematic arc again and again, from Mary and Jodeci's second albums to both of Big's albums.

This nod to Andre Young carries added significance because it came in the first months of 1997, after Tupac had died and Dre had left Death Row Records and Suge Knight (who was serving time when this song was recorded) to form Aftermath. So while it's a simple name check, it's also a loaded political gesture from Puff to Dre, who in some ways Puff considered to be his counterpart on the West Coast

3. In the Book of Genesis, Lot, nephew of Abraham, is visited by an angel. When Sodomite enemies arrive at his door to rape the men in Lot's household—the angel strikes them blind. As Lot's family flees for safety in nearby Zoar, Lot's wife, ignoring the angel's strict admonition, glances over her shoulder to see Sodom destroyed from sulfur and fire from above. As punishment she is transformed into a pillar of salt.

4. On Puff's laundry list of possessions, "bitches" rank third, and are covered in the following line by the noun "things."

5. "Don't ask me for shit" is both an allusion to the chorus from Big and Method Man's collab "The What" on Ready to Die, and a personally conservative, pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps philosophy. After being publicly fired from his job at Uptown, and being constantly whispered about by industry colleagues, Puff adopted a guarded, almost isolationist way of doing business from early on.

6. His verse’s sole double-entendre: the ’80s term "fly" is used here to reference private jets, which in the ’90s were still largely aspirational for rappers—even Puff.

7. On February 11, 1990, this South African political prisoner was released after serving 27 years for his anti-apartheid organizing. An international hero, Mandela made his way to Harlem that June and was received in the streets by tens of thousands as he launched a limited tour across America.

New York's first black mayor, David Dinkins, had to obtain special permission for Mandela's visit, as he remained on the U.S. Terrorist Watch list into the 21st century—although he was elected the first black president of South Africa in 1994.

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