Sly Fox
by Nas

Album: Untitled (2008)
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Songfacts®:

  • This is an attack on Fox News, a network Nas denounces as visual cancer. The song was written as a consequence of Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly's denouncing Nas' participation in a memorial concert at Virginia Tech as an "insult to the victims" of the shootings in 2007.
  • Spin magazine asked Nas about the line in the song concerning how Fox News makes him want to donate to PBS. The rapper replied: "I love PBS! I grew up on it. If I had to say which channels were good, I'd say, you got your PBS, your History Channel, your Discovery."
  • On July 23, 2008, Nas teamed up with the activist group Color of Change to protest Fox News, accusing the network of racism. Nas read a statement in front of their headquarters in New York City, and claimed to have over 600,000 signatures on a petition to back up his position. Fox News made this statement in response: "Fox News believes in all protesters exercising their right to free speech, including Nas, who has an album to promote."
  • Nas performed this on the Colbert Report on July 24, where he was interviewed among the boxes of petitions he brought to the Fox News protest.
  • The lyrics, "Only Fox that I love was the red one" is a reference to the popular black comedian Redd Foxx, who starred in the TV show Sanford and Son.

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