One of the Best Collections of Unreleased Material Who would have thought that some of Nas' best songs were 'unreleased'? At least seven of these tracks could be mentioned in the aforementioned category and while a few don't work, it is the best collection of unreleased material I've heard, for which some of these would have made Nas' intended '99 double disc release, however, early mp3 bootlegging put that to an end. What doesn't quite work for me is 'Poppa Was a Playa' (apparently ghost produced by Kanye West) which I know a lot love, but the hook is weak. 'U Gotta Love It' also doesn't have great production, but that is all I can complain about. 'Purple' is the pick for me from the disc, and on what I opened with, I actually slipped 'Purple' into my top 10 Nas songs when I made a list back in the day. As you can already tell from the rating, you can do worse than check this out. Best Tracks: Doo Rags, Nothing Last Forever, No Idea's Original, Purple, Drunk by Myself, Black Zombie, Fetus

When I acquired this album I was only starting to really get into hip hop and music, and it took a few listens to grow on me as this was quite different to what I'd been listening to. I'd heard ‘I Am…’ which was one of my first rap albums and I loved that, but from a production point of view, this is quite different as it was to the other stuff I was playing. It feels more like live instruments were used at times rather than the boards. Once I started to enjoy it though, it seemed/seems every time I listen to it I like it more and more, and now, while every track isn't brilliant, I don't find one song I don't enjoy. The album itself is a collection of different ideas. Much of the first disc is about race issues, where Nas calls out people including Kobe Bryant - “Little kids with they bus pass who look up to you, To do something for the youth, stupid spoof”. It feels like a prequel to ‘Untitled’. 'Sekou Story' and 'Live Now' also feature Scarlett, who is just Nas with his voice altered to sound like a female. Disc two is more varied in subject matter. The first half is really just a collection of random songs including a track about Rakim (produced by Nas), which created a bit of beef interestingly enough. Rakim was left wondering how Nas knew as much as he did about the legend. From the 'Remember the Times (Intro)' though, we get a run of tracks built around his relationship with Kelis that was going on at the time. And we also get a track with his father, and a song dedicated to his daughter Destiny, so that theme of family continues. Although I'm glad it's not, because I like most of this, I think that if Nas just had one disc of the best this album offers, this could be possibly contending for his second best album by a larger audience. It was actually released in an abridged fourteen track version, that may be more to people's taste and attention span. However, as I say with many double albums, when an artist gives us double the material, I'm someone who overlooks a bit of filler/low points for the high points of the album, so it gets a good rating because there is enough great stuff across the two discs. It is up there competing to be my second favourite Nas album. Beats: ★★★★ Bars: ★★★★★ Best Tracks: Message to the Feds, American Way, These Are Our Heroes, Suicide Bounce, Makings of a Perfect Bitch (same beat used on Kool Savas & Azad’s ‘All 4 One’), Streets Disciple, to name a few.

5+ Spins and Nothing Has Stuck Nas is one of the greatest. I have a number of his projects, even those most don't love like 'I Am...' and 'Street's Disciple', in my top 50 rap albums of all time, and I've been called a Stan because of it, but I can't say this reaches anywhere near those heights. Nas raps as well as he ever has. He still knows how to flow from word to word and write to allow that to happen. There is some signature style Nas rhyming, particularly on songs like 'Blue Benz', that is a delight to listen to. The rapping performance has almost never been the issue with Nas though. Aside from Nas on the vocals, there are some questionable features though like Lil Durk, and from my perspective, Big Sean's lazy sounding delivery hurts 'Replace Me'. Anderson doesn't knock 'All Bad' out the paak either. Topically it has issues. I don't find a lot of this interesting. It's a mixture of his come up, a bit of brag rap, racism, African-American empowerment/celebration among other topics. Some bars on 'Til The War Is Won' caught my attention, but after a number of spins, I don't find the content very engaging, which is particularly important if I don't love the beats which I'll talk about next. Onto the production that is handled predominantly by Hit-Boy. There are some nice moments and touches such as the beat switch on 'Blue Benz', but the production doesn't wow me. It is different than what Nas has often rapped over but it sounds dirty in parts. At times the production doesn't vary much from the generic trap sound we have heard so frequently for about a decade now. I know it's a compilation, but 'The Lost Tapes 2' has a number of songs with more likeable beats than anything on this. I listened to the aforementioned album after this and I realised that I was bumping my head straightaway to most of the songs and that basically didn't happen at all with King's Disease. "We going ultra black, it supposed to slap" - It doesn't... The trend, maybe due to streaming, of short songs in general, doesn't do this album any favours either. '27 Summers' is one of my favourite moments but its short length hurts it. The 16 bars x 3 verses as a song structure works. It's a tried and true formula. I can find it hard to get into short tracks. There aren't many if any hooks to stay in your head here either. There is quality control. Only 13 songs with a running time of 38 minutes make this an easy listen, and maybe it's a touch better than his last effort, Nasir, but as I said with Nasir, there is no amazing song here. I get busy with the playlists on Spotify and it never occurred to me to add anything from this to my 'Best of Nas' list. He hasn't made a song to add to his best of playlist since 2012. I said this after Nasir, but I hope that he still has his 'Nas Album Done' album ready to release. I'm glad this was fairly well-received but I'm disappointed with it. I can't give it more than a 6/10/ Beats: ★★☆ Rapping: ★★★★ Bars: ★★★ Hooks: ★★☆

"They thought I'd make another Illmatic But it's always forward I'm movin' Never backwards stupid here's another classic?" I waited to purchase this despite the early leak of the album so therefore I had plenty of time to read many reviews. From many of them one would have thought the beats were something a 5 year old would construct… Anyway, while most won't blow you away like the way Dre's Chronic blew people away back in '92, for the most part, I like them and I think they compliment Nas well and what he is trying to do with this. 'You Can't Stop Us Now', 'Hero', 'America', 'N.I.G.G.E.R.' (The Slave and the Master) & 'Black President' are all extremely excellent tracks from a production and lyrical point of view with 'Sly Fox' and 'Y'all My Niggas' not being far off. The subject matter of racism has obviously been done before (without the current Obama stuff and so on) but Nas still spits some worthwhile material and I struggle to think of an album subject wise that has been overly original in a while. Even without my bias of being a big Nas fan (if you can't tell from my username) this is easily one of the best hip hop albums so far in 2008. While not a classic, as there are a few skippable tunes, I have listened to it about five times already and my enjoyment has increased with each spin. The best on this are some of his best songs. I put that on my mother. Best Tracks: N.I.G.G.E.R. (The Slave and the Master), America, Hero, Black President, You Can't Stop Us Now

This is almost everyone's least favourite Nas album, as up to NASIR it deserved to be. However, I don't think it's as bad as most claim it to be. It's also not as poppy as some will have you believe, as really only two of the tracks ('Nastradamus' and 'You Owe Me') are a lot more commercial sounding than his other work. If this was Nas' first album or by some no-name rapper, I can't see it having the low rating it does. It's worth noting that as I Am... was originally going to be a double-disc album, but was one of the first major releases to be leaked on the net, that if things went as planned this album may never have happened. Anyway, one of the biggest problems here are some of the hooks which are not implemented well and make some tracks more boring - see 'Some of Us Have Angels' for an example of that. It's nowhere near his previous three albums or what he created in the future, but I still like about half of it. 'God Love Us', - which is one hook that I do love - 'Life We Chose' and 'Come Get Me' are three high-quality tracks worth hearing if nothing else. 3.5-3/5 Best Tracks: God Love Us, Life We Chose, Come Get Me