Hate Me Now
Defiance against hate, embracing success.
"Hate Me Now" is the second and final single by rapper Nas featuring Puff Daddy, from Nas' third studio album *I Am...*. The backbeat is inspired by, and contains some samples from, Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana." It was ranked 119 on XXL's 250 Best Songs of the 1990s.
- Artist
- Nas featuring Puff Daddy
- Album
- I Am...
- Release year
- 1999
Lore & Background
In a 2007 interview with Rolling Stone, Nas recalled the making of the song: "It was a track D-Moet produced for Foxy Brown, and she didn't want the record, she didn't like it. It fit with my album, *I Am...*, so I did the D-Moet track and it sounded perfect for Puff to be on, so I gave it to him, went to the studio, and he rocked it, knocked it out." "Hate Me Now" was released as a single in the U.S. by Columbia Records on April 6, 1999. Biographer Ronin Ro describes Combs's persona in the song as "the angry young rapper battling jealous critics," a theme that would influence Combs's 1999 album *Forever*. The beat samples "Carmina Burana" by Carl Orff. In the second verse, Nas raps "Bill Gate dreams," dropping the final -s from Bill Gates's surname to fit the English noun-noun compound pattern.
Reader's Guide
For RapReviews.com, Steve Juon said that "Hate Me Now" was the "only truly overpowering song" from *I Am...*: "It may be yet another mad track about playa hating, but the rebuttal of the hate is crisp and well defined - owing little to cliche." In 2013, *Complex* ranked the "Hate Me Now" video no. 8 in its "50 Best Rap Videos of the '90s" list. The song was used as the entrance song for Nate Diaz at the finale of the 5th season of *The Ultimate Fighter*, for Marcus Aurelio at UFC 102, during a promo package for professional wrestler The Miz at WrestleMania XXVII, in *Skam* Season 3 Episode 6 "Escobar Season", in the soundtrack for basketball video game *NBA 2K14*, in a musical production in Episode 9 of *Dear White People* (TV series), and a remix of the song is featured in the first official trailer for the 2023 film *Gran Turismo*.
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