Thief's Theme

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"Thief's Theme"

Single by Nas
from the album Street's Disciple
Released	2004
Format	CD single
Recorded	2001 - 2004
Genre	Hip hop
Length	2:59
Label	Ill Will/Columbia
Writer(s)	Nasir Jones
Producer(s)	Salaam Remi
Chart positions
#, (U.S. R&B)
Nas singles chronology
"Get Down" (2003)	"Thief's Theme" (2004)	"Bridging the Gap" (2004)

"Thief's Theme" is a single from Nas' double album Street's Disciple. It is the last song of the album (13th track of the double album to be precise). The single contains vocals from Nas' song "The World Is Yours" from his first album Illmatic:

"The Thief's theme, play me at night they won't act right Understandable smooth shit that murderers move with."

This was intended to remind listeners that it was Illmatic's 10th Anniversary.

The song featured an interpolation of the famous riff from Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" performed by Incredible Bongo Band. Nas would again use the same sample on the 2006 single "Hip Hop is Dead".

Nas sponsored a contest in the United Kingdom in 2004, encouraging entrants to record a verse using the instrumental version of the song. The winner would perform a verse on the song, which would appear on the UK version of Street's Disciple. Rising Son would win the competition.

UK Hiphop rapper/producer Sway DaSafo produced a remix of the song entitled Theif's Theme Freestyle featuring his own blend of ironic verses which appeared on his mixtape This is my Promo (Vol 1) in 2003.

In 2006, the song was used in a scene from the film, The Departed.

1 Music video
2 Track listing
- 2.1 A-side
- 2.2 B-side

[edit] Music video

The video mostly revolves around two parts- one part shows some men who are robbing stores and walking around and the other part shows Nas and some men with him getting ready to rob. The music video had fair rotation on MTV and BET but the later singles were more popular.