N.O.R.E.’s new video “Bloody Money” is not for a new song. Not up on the classics? Confused? Well, let N.O.R.E. explain.

The LeFrak City, Queens rhyme slinger turned unconventional and released a recently-shot video for a song that is 15-years-old in 1997’s timeless “Bloody Money” from CNN’s The War Report album.

N.O.R.E. explained the method to his madness with XXL.

“I do shows and in my performance set, all of my bangers come back to back: ‘Super Thug,’ ‘T.O.N.Y,’ ‘Fuck With Us,’ ‘Nothin,’ ‘Oh No’…. I kept realizing that ‘Bloody Money’ would ring off with records that had major money behind them,” N.O.R.E. told XXL. “It took major money for ‘Super Thug’ to become a hit. It took major money for ‘Nothin’ to become a hit.  It absolutely took no money at all to make ‘Bloody Money’ a hit. I sat back and said, ‘Imagine if I did a video for it now?’ It’s really no rules in the game.”

On Monday (July 23), he delivered “Bloody Money” in a understated sneak attack. That’s because it was tacked onto the end of his video for the Wale and Sho Balloti-featured “Get Her,” a new cut of his.

“I wanted to bring in a younger audience and younger demographic,” he explained. “Once they see Wale and the girls and us partying…”

For “Bloody Money,” N.O. blended a performance of the track, flanked by Capone and their crew, with behind-the- scenes tour and studio footage with fellow MCs such as 50 Cent.

Today (July 26), though, he released “Bloody Money” independent of “Get here” and it has been getting love on the blogs with its own posting. N.O. said he did take exception of some bloggers not knowing the record was from The War Report and not his latest mixtape, Crack On Steroids.

“I was taking it personally because if you’re gonna own a blog or do a blog, people should do their history,” he rationalized. “ ‘Blood Money’ is a 1997 classic. It’s not new.”

The Queens native adds that he feels he started a trend with putting out new videos for classic songs.

“It’s also genius,” he added about shooting a video for a classic song. “In this climate you gotta constantly put records out there, you gotta constantly put visuals out there. You gotta stay on your viral game. But doing these old videos and going back to the old essence, you can marinate on that. And while you marinate on that I’ll give you something brand new at the same time. I’m sure so many people are gonna go and do new videos to their old joints.”

As for doing other vids for his songs in the vaults, N.O.R.E. has a list.

“As of now, I’m thinking about doing [videos] for ‘I’m Leaving,’ and ‘Laundromat Trap,’ for the real, real underground CNN people,” he revealed. “That record was just for the underground.  I also want to do ‘Parole Violators’ and ‘Sometimes.’”—Shaheem Reid (@ShaheemReid)

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