Some really dope tunes on here.

Temptation
For my people

Some of my favorites.

Some of my friends.

Forgotten Album.

I like Joey for the most part, be he doesn’t stick with me like he does for others.

What did you think of this album? Production is more mainstream but to me it has an awesome vibe. Just feel good

Some great hooks on here too. I forgot how good the hooks were

For me it’s the most forgettable, during that time period other Rap albums made a bigger impact.

I need to play it back I haven’t done so since the pandemic.

AABA and DAMN back to back what a time

I listened to the first 5-6 songs on a drive last week, and it just pretty much reinforced why I didn't want to listen to it when it initially came out

I loved the "conscious" era of Joey admittedly, but he also just said s*** in a very dope way. As I recall, some of that seeped into B4.Da.$$, but he still had alot of the PE/conscious s*** there too. Ever since then, he's just felt like a very safe, not particularly interesting artist imo

Never finished 2000, but some of what I heard from there was more interesting than what I heard from this project

I'll have to come back to it and give it a comprehensive listen though. It did definitely have the "uplifting" type vibe that I think OP is getting at here

I think that’s why I like this project. It’s feels good vibes. I think that was the purpose. I dig it. Especially when I just want something to make me feel a little better than I’m currently feeling.

KTT2 really overuses the phrase, but this album really “came and went”.

It’s a good album but not great or special IMO

Good album. It definitely had some real catchy hooks. I still find myself singing them randomly from time to time

For a moment there, it seemed like DEVASTATED was going to propel him into the mainstream. But then it dropped and nothing really happened.

i didn’t like it whatsoever tbf i grew off joey once 1999 gimmick wore off and there was several better neo 90s east coast rap to peep like roc marci for example.

however this aged badly. there’s a reason this was forgotten. feel like joey garnered a reputation he never truly deserved it reminds me of jcole where they try their hardest but you can sense the desperation to be seen as a legend like nas or biggie etc.

I think you might be putting too much thought into psychoanalyzing Joey. But you got it

I liked it a lot at the time

I love this album

There’s definitely not enough “let’s just make dudes feel better about their lives” albums out there, esp in rap nowadays. I think that’s one reason Below the Heavens will always be timeless. Just a guy going through some relatable moments in life and trying his best to push through the day

joey singing on this was good tbh

I remember that Devastated single really reached people who didn’t f*** with him

People liked him doing that “skrrt skrrt” s*** a simpler time

I don’t think he did a good enough job making the body of work live up to the single though

Is that was this album was? I remember it coming off more like a political rap album from that era.

I really liked it at the time. A very uplifting socially conscious song in sound content. The videos were amazing too

S*** ass and mid like his whole career

very good album, it really hits it stride on the second half of it

wish joey didnt take that hiatus after this cause i really felt like he coulda been way bigger had he kept dropping albums

It actually was big on the radio but he needed to follow it up. It was weird how he had that single but then the album was more like some kind of weird j Cole politics type album.

And then he fell off after

I love this album at the time, in retrospect I prefer B4.da.$$