“Never knew murder ’til I seen my man get popped/No blood soakin’, layin’ there, eyes still open/I got a little closer, put my hand in his palm/He was lookin’ right through me, yo, starin’ beyond/I wonder what he saw: the limos, movies and tours?/Did he die in vain or represent for the cause?/Now I put his name on everything I’m involved/And that’s the game y’all can’t relate, f**k y’all” “Ni**as used to wear rags on they hair when it was fried up/That’s when we were lied to, buyin’ hair products/Back before my generation, when our blackness started disintegratin’ till awareness started penetratin’/The styles come from prison/They used potatoes makin’ liquor just to prove we some creative ni**as/Turnin’ nothin’ into somethin’ is God work/And you get nothin’ without struggle and hard work” “Pushin’ drop-tops, Stacy Lattisaw tapes, the 80’s had us all apes/Youngest gorillas up to bat at home plate/That was a uncanny era, guns in my pants, yeah/X-Clan hair, with dreads at the top of my fade/Homicidal feds on the blocks where I played b-ball/That’s when I wondered was I here for the cause or because/’Cause Ray Charles could see the ghetto/Was told to stay strong and I could beat the devil” Fifteen years after its release, VIBE goes down memory lane and compiles 20 of the most memorable lyrics from the album that still leaves us in awe. Released on September 23, 2002, Lost Tapes was met with critical acclaim and hailed as an instant-classic, capitalizing on the momentum set by Stillmatic and erasing any doubt that Nas had lost his touch or capability as an emcee. Another attempt at damage control as a result of leaked material also affected Nas’ Nastradamus album, forcing him to record all new material to meet its intended release date, a move that would be maligned and serve as a blemish on an otherwise stellar catalog. However, many key songs intended for the album, including “Blaze a 50,” “Drunk by Myself,” and “Poppa Was a Playa,” were leaked and bootlegged prior to its release, leading Nas to scrap the double-album idea and release a stripped down version of I Am… . Taking a page out of his fallen rivals’ books, the Queens native intended for his highly anticipated follow-up to It Was Written, I Am…, to be a double-album, a move that if executed well, would have put him in rare air as a rap artist.

occurred within a year of It Was Written‘s release, leaving Nas as the default choice to carry on the torch as rap’s supreme soloist. After the release of his monstrous It Was Written album in 1996, the untimely deaths of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. One tidbit that many casual fans gloss over when appraising Nas albums like I Am… and Nastradamus are the circumstances that surrounded their release and how they ultimately altered the course of his career.

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