"One Love" samples the mbira (thumb piano), double bass and piano from the
Heath Brothers' "Smilin' Billy Suite Part II" (1975) and contains a
drum break from
Parliament's "Come in out the Rain" (1970), which add to the song's mystical and hypnotic soundscape. Lyrically, "One Love" is composed of a series of letters written by Nas to
incarcerated friends, recounting mutual acquaintances and events that have occurred since the receiver's imprisonment, including unfaithful girlfriends, emotionally tortured mothers and underdog loyalty. According to one writer, the phrase "one love" represents street loyalty in the song. Nas later explained that the title of the song originated from Jamaican singer-songwriter
Bob Marley's
song of the same name, which, according to writer Mickey Hess, "echoed the ubiquitous street salutation 'one' (similar to 'peace') used around Nas's neighborhood." Cormega's rapping career had been put on hold due to his incarceration during the early 1990s, before his release in 1995. Music writer Susan Weinstein wrote that "the literary technique Nas most strongly excels in is the one that would seem to be most pedestrian: rhyme", and cited "One Love" as the first display of Nas's "formal inventiveness". ==Retrospect==