"Hey Young World" was the second single released from Slick Rick's debut album, The Great Adventures of Slick Rick. It was released in 1989 as the follow-up to Slick Rick's popular "Children's Story" and was both written and produced by Slick Rick himself. "Hey Young World" did not reach the same level of success as "Children's Story", reaching number 42 on the Hot Black Singles chart and number 17 on the Hot Rap Singles chart. The B-side contained the popular song, "Mona Lisa".
The song was referenced in Keri Hilson's song "Knock You Down" by guest rapper Kanye West and also in "Pray" by Jay-Z. A sequel of sorts was created by Macy Gray for her album The Id in form of "Hey Young World (Part 2)." It was sampled by TLC for their single "Creep".
Famous quotes containing the words young and/or world:
“The angels were all singing out of tune,
And hoarse with having little else to do,
Excepting to wind up the sun and moon
Or curb a runaway young star or two.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“The world is a beautiful book, but of little use to him who cannot read it.”
—Carlo Goldoni (1707–1793)