All it takes is the right beat to send Nasir Jones back to 1994. On the latest preview of the Queens lyricist's forever-forthcoming new album, a stammering dancehall sample (hacked up by right-hand man Salaam Remi and the late Heavy D) provokes a cascade of self-mythologizing scenes. "Fuck sadness," Nas argues. "Had this been you having this lavish, habitual happiness, at me you wouldn’t look backwards." But looking backward is what he does most deftly on "The Don," with a concise portrait of the artist as a young man: "I used to listen to that Red Alert and 'Rap Attack'/I fell in love with all that poetry, I mastered that." Bring on the album.

Listen to "The Don":

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• Photos: Random Notes

“Tonight's the Night”

The lead cut and title track from this girl group's debut album, "Tonight's the Night" was written by 19-year-old bandmember Shirley Owens, who sings lead, and producer Luther Dixon. The band from Passaic, New Jersey met in high school, first calling themselves the Pequellos. The song's frank thoughts about sexual and emotional surrender was racy for the time, but that didn't stop the Chiffons from cutting a similar version immediately after the original came out. "We were the first female group to write some of our own material," band member Beverly Lee recalls. "We did have some say-so in our writing."