Grand Theft Auto is an original song in Grand Theft Auto and Grand Theft Auto III, composed by Craig Conner and performed by Robert De Negro. It is performed by in-universe band Da Shootaz.
Description[]
The song can be heard as the first song on N-CT FM in the first Grand Theft Auto and as the fifth song on Lips 106 in Grand Theft Auto III. It also plays on the main menu of the first game, and was briefly featured on the 'megabnce.mp3' promotional file to promote the game's release.
It is an important song in the Grand Theft Auto series series, as it both helped define how the music in a Grand Theft Auto game should be, as well as helping to prove to the team developing the first Grand Theft Auto that implementing CD music as a central part of the game was a necessary step in the right direction.
Credits[]
- Vocals - Robert De Negro
- All Instruments - Craig Conner
- Produced by Craig Conner
History and Recording[]
The song "Grand Theft Auto" played a huge part in the history of the Grand Theft Auto series: as we know through interviews with the early Grand Theft Auto developers and staff members, it is one of the songs, alongside On The Move, that convinced them to incorporate CD audio as a central part of the game's soundtrack.
The inclusion of different radios with a variety of different music styles that played depending on which car the player was driving, based on stereotypical owners of such cars, was one of the first proposals,[1] but at first this idea wasn't really accepted by all the staff and had some skeptics, owing to a drawn-out "development hell" that had been going on and on for years.[2]
They didn't have the resources or the support of the music industry to feature well-known mainstream hits, something they really wanted,[3] and as such they went into recording original songs.
Colin Anderson dealt with rock, funk and country tracks, meanwhile Craig Conner dealt with electronic, pop and hip hop tracks. Conner, then indie music producer recently hired, started to draft the hip hop tracks, but soon began to struggle as he was more of an electronic music enthusiast and had never rapped,[4] so he teamed up with Johnny Wilson (who adopted the alias "Robert De Negro"), who was "a tall, black guy who was a student of Chemistry at Dundee University", in the words of early GTA developer Dave Jones.[5] They had one clear objective: making a hip hop track that synthesized all what a Grand Theft Auto game is. This song became "Grand Theft Auto". After finishing it, it was so succesful within the staff that the company was definitely convinced on making music a great element of the game and have different radios; the song itself became the blueprint for the later songs produced, showcasing all what a GTA game's song should have.
Content[]
The song was written by Craig Conner, one of Rockstar's in-house musicians, and is a stereotype of 'gangsta rap', with blatant lyrics concerning (appropriately) car theft, drug use, running from the law and the possession and use of firearms. Conner is also credited as playing all of the instruments in the song.
The track first appears in Grand Theft Auto, where it is credited to the fictitious band Da Shootaz, fronted by rapper Robert DeNegro (an obvious pun on actor Robert De Niro, who starred in many of the gangster films that have been cited as inspiration for the GTA games). The song plays in the main menu of Grand Theft Auto and reappeared on the soundtrack for Grand Theft Auto III as a nod to the original game, on the in-game radio station Lips 106. It should also be noted that in this second appearance the two uses of the profanity "fuck" in the song are censored through the overdubbing of Lips 106 taglines, which is somewhat ironic given the otherwise gratuitous and mature nature of the game.
The opening hook of the song also appears throughout the GTA series. In GTA III, the player's pager plays out a primitive rendition of the hook whenever a message is received, while the Commodore 64-like opening of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City features the same hook in a more vibrant 8-bit tone. GTA III's pager ringtone is also recycled as a selectable ringtone on the player's mobile phone in Grand Theft Auto IV, simply titled "Pager".
Lyrics[]
As one would expect from a song written as a theme for Grand Theft Auto, the track's lyrics make many references to the kind of criminality associated with the games, and even mentions the phrase 'Grand Theft Auto' specifically.
- (Good shot kid, I think you got him.)
- (Good shot kid, I think you got him.)
- (Slow down.)
- Uptown, downtown, speeding all around.
- An AK-47 got the power in its barrel.
- To move any mother that gets in the way.
- Just another power machine on the freeway.
- Riding with me is my MC homeboy.
- Knowing the rules ain't part of his program.
- Finding the right way around this map.
- Might be pretty hard 'cause he's fucked on crack.
- G - grand theft auto.
- You gotta make a mark and move where you want to.
- T - theft.
- Determination to steal what you can and run from the nation.
- A - hey, what do ya say?
- We automate the sequence and speed for my getaway.
- Take it to the edge, there's nowhere to hide.
- And call up the boys, let's go for a joyride.
- Let's go for a joyride.
- Stop the violence from the police.
- It's what my dad used say, but now he's deceased.
- He got caught in a jam, threw in the can.
- When the cops from Brooklyn said he'd killed another man.
- Street knowledge was my main game.
- To figure out the law, to figure out the frame.
- Just when I thought I knew justice.
- A cop behind me said, you just been busted.
- NYPD (NYPD).
- LAPD (LAPD).
- SFPD (SFPD).
- Don't fuck with me.
Video[]
Audio[]
References[]
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| Grand Theft Auto Original Soundtrack | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Albums/Tracklists | DāM-FunK Presents The Music of Grand Theft Auto Online Original Score | Grand Theft Auto - The Contract | The Sound of Grand Theft Auto: The Classics | The Sound of Grand Theft Auto: A Musical History | The Music of Grand Theft Auto Online: The Cayo Perico Heist | Grand Theft Auto x Beatport | Grand Theft Auto Online: Arena War Official Soundtrack | Customer is King EP | The Alchemist and Oh No Present: Welcome to Los Santos | The Music of Grand Theft Auto V | Statik Selektah's The Lost And Damned EP | Music from and Inspired by Vladivostok FM | Liberty City Invasion | The Music of Grand Theft Auto IV | Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: Official Soundtrack Box Set | Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: Official Soundtrack | Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - Music from Radio Espantoso | Love Fist EP | Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Official Soundtrack Box Set | Grand Theft Auto: Vice City O.S.T. - Greatest Hits | Rising To The Top/Spit Game | Grand Theft Auto III Soundtrack Sampler | Wankers On Duty | Grand Theft Auto The Soundtrack/Les Meilleures Musiques de GTA | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Official Score |
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| Themes | SOUTHSIDE | KOWALSKI | Assault Tech One | ETA | O Mio Babbino Caro (Hudson Mohawke Remix) | Gettin' Money | Change of Coast | Welcome to Los Santos | I Keep on Walking | Chinatown Wars | Soviet Connection | A Dark March | This Life | Theme from San Andreas | Theme from Vice City | Theme from GTA III | Short Change | Grand Theft Auto | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Original Songs |
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| Music Composers |
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| Labels | CircoLoco Records | Moving Shadow | Mass Appeal Records | Game Records | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Related topics | Radio Stations | Love Is A Long Road | Keith Rap | MSX 99.1 | MSX 99.2 | Grand Theft Auto - 25th Anniversary Composer's Mixes | GTA 5: The Cinematographic Score | Channel X: The Rejected Soundtrack | Wash Us in the Blood | The Valley of the Pagans | San Andreas: The Original Mixtape (San Andreas Rap) | Monday Dreamin’ | CircoLoco Records & NEZ Present CLR 002 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cancelled | Wow Its What We Call Vice Beats | The Music of Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned | Grievous Bodily Harm | ||||||||||||||||||||||||