Trivia

• The song shares its title with a Nas track from his 2002 album God’s Son. Nas can be heard scratched by DJ Premier on the song’s outro; although he says “book of rhymes,” the sample is taken from his song “The World Is Yours.”

Words from Eminem

“

I have fuckin’ stacks and stacks of books. I remember — I think it was Alchemist who told me this crazy story about KRS-One, that he came into the studio with a bag full of books, and I was like, “Yo, that’s so crazy.” This is 20 years ago he told me this story, and I was like, “How the fuck does he have that many books?” Now I have that many books. I used to just take a piece of paper, if it was sitting there on the table, write on it, and stick it in my pocket.

Now I keep them in books, so I’ve got fuckin’ bags full of books. Now KRS-One probably has twice as many books as I have, because he had twice as many back then. No one will ever understand what is in my book, because it’s just scribble-scrabble — nothing’s really connected. There’s no rhyme or reason to it; it’s just me writing the thought down as soon as I get it so I don’t forget it.

I can’t memorize everything I write, but I’ll remember if it was six books ago that I was writing in. I’ll remember which side of the page this little rhyme scheme was that I was working on one day, because sometimes I’ll make rhyme schemes and I’ll be like, “I’ll never use it,” and then sometimes I’ll be like, “Oh shit, a couple of years ago I remember this thing I was thinking of — let me go find that.”

So then I’ve got to go back like five books, and it takes like half a day to go back and remember what the fuck I was talking about on that day, but I’ll be like… it’s really hard to find.