Nas is in my top 3, if not top 1, but I was never anticipating this too highly. Maybe if this was released when it was hinted at any moons ago I would've been, but Premo hasn't been a consistently dope producer for a long, long time. Many people say since PRhyme or PRhyme 2 which was already 10 years ago, but I would say it goes further back than that. Apologists argue lots of things, like this is the sound they were going for. Or it has that 90s feel. Or what did you expect? Or it will be a grower. Most things are a grower if you listen to them on repeat... Flat beats, are flat beats. Nas has saved beats in the past, and does his thing here, but I think he was spitting better on a lot of his recent featuring verses and albums like KD3 than he is here. The rapping is still of high quality though, but the bars aren't that interesting at times. The hooks are again lacking, which is something I say a lot about modern hip hop and said on quite a few of Nas' albums with Hit-Boy. All in all, there are some original concepts but nothing goes beyond good here. There isn't one top tier Nas track and most of all that's down to the beats and lack of memorable hooks. A lot of blame has been put on Premo but there's no i in team. Beats: ★★★ Rapping/Bars: ★★★★ Hooks: ★★☆ Best Tracks: My Life Is Real, NY State of Mind Pt. 3, Sons (Young Kings), Nasty Esco Nasir 1. My Life Is Real 2. GiT Ready 3. NY State of Mind Pt. 3 I don't understand the hate for this production. It feels dark like the originals and the change up (something producers forget to do these days) between the verses and hook is something a lot of songs on this album, and from hip hop as a whole, these days is missing. There are way too many lazy producers and artists who basically loop a few seconds worth of music for 3-4 minutes. At least there is variety. 4. Welcome to the Underground This one drags on. The beat doesn't change up enough and all the break we did is some scratches of Ice Cube saying the title 5. Madman Nas tells us about his come up. Kind of another dark theme to the production. Nas is rapping his ass off but the beat again doesn't do enough to make it memorable with short vocals scratches again for the hook. 6. Pause Tapes We get a history lesson about an early way of sampling. 7. Writers Prem and Nas both mentioned this as one of the favs from the album. Lots of shouting out of names like on 'Bouquet (To the Ladies)' that won't mean a lot to most people. 8. Sons (Young Kings) I predicted this one. I wrote in my review of 'Life Is Good' that, "He'll have to create a song about his son on his next album though. He can't show favouritism." Well, maybe not the "next album" part. I like the low-fi type of production here. One of the more likeable beats. 9. It's Time 10. Nasty Esco Nasir Nas brings his alter-egos. 11. My Story Your Story An average reunion with AZ. From the cringe intro, outro, topics, rapping, to the beat, I don't get this song. Again, nothing much if anything changes with the production during the hook. 12. Bouquet (To the Ladies) Nas spends the last 90 seconds just shouting out any female rapper here no matter how wack they are or with any engagement for the listener. If you're going to do this, rap it in bars something like Eminem did on 'Yah Yah'. Give it some replay value. Prior to that it's a decent ode to the ladies. 13. Junkie Another average hook. 14. Shine Together More just scratching vocals for the hook again... I like the production a little more than a number of songs. 15. 3rd Childhood