"I Gotcha Back" is a song by American rapper and Wu-Tang Clan member GZA. It is the first single and the first song written for his second studio album Liquid Swords (1995). The song contains a dialogue excerpt from the film Shogun Assassin and samples from "As Long as I've Got You" by The Charmels and "Is It Him or Me" by Jackie Jackson.

Background

GZA described the song's background and theme by stating,

This was a short rhyme I wrote for one of my nephews. When I said, “My lifestyle so far from well, could’ve wrote a book called Age Twelve and Going Through Hell.” It’s for my nephew who was twelve at the time, and whose father, my brother, had been locked up since ‘88. So he wasn’t around for my nephew when times were rough, so I wanted to up my nephew a bit with this track. I had two nephews in the video, they were both real young at the time. And in video, they both had met up and shots rang out from some young gangsters. It’s a shame because both those kids in the video, both nephews of mine, ended up getting in trouble for ringing out shots and are both doing time right now. It’s kind of ironic. One of my nephews ended up getting eights years for that shit. So the whole song is a sad irony to me now.^[1]

Track listing

Charts

References