Jay himself ranks it over American Gangster

Which I disagree with but a lot of Hov fans who were alive when the album dropped rank it highly I think it just suffers from aging

His ranking bogus for MCHG over Vol 1 but Ik how much he regrets that album

Dynasty too cmon

His volume 1 take is trash

Vol 1 can go toe to toe with It Was Written imo but even a couple of years ago the convo on IWW wasnt as positive

People are coming around to Vol 1

Right

IWW was always dragged through the dirt for no good reason

An underrated Hov album is Blueprint 3

A lot of the beats aged like s*** but he was flowing on that album

Eh its aight to me

The biggest songs are the best to me

this used to be my s*** then one day i realized how weird it sounded

He was flowing, its really overlooked

Already Home Thank You and So Ambitious are just nuts

But a song like On To The Next has a trash beat but bro was talking heavy for 3 verses fr, flow was silly. What We Talking About, A Star Is Born, Reminder same deal

One of the worst aged songs on the album but bro in 2009 this was how mainstream rap soundedb

Its like futuristic dust

S*** listening to it now though his flow is tough

Tell Rush Limbaugh to get off my balls

I actually like On To The Next One lol and I hate swizz beats

Especially when he work with Jay

Bruh that beat is terrible nowadays but Hov was talking too heavy on that for me to ignore it

But Already Home man, s*** is godly

stillmatic beats scratch an itch my ears and brain

Now Paying: God’s Son

zone out beat?

had to pause the album after that song cause i wanted to appreciate the peaceful silence this song denied me

Lmao

I remember when that dropped and while it was a comeback it also felt like The Source was desperate to rate that a classic to hype the Jay beef up.

But I think if I AM was released as planned and trimmed to the top 12 or so songs it would have been a classic. Imagine opening that joint with Fetus, NY pt 2, Nas is Like

Yeah yeah, I Am could've been a classic with the right tracklist but you are underestimating Stillmatic. It's consistent af and has some of his most forward thinking songs

He has shown artistic growth from I Am era to Stillmatic/God's Son, learned to do more with his voice and expanded his subject matter

The Blueprint can't even hold a candle compared to Stillmatic in terms of content and diversity. I can see ppl arguing The Blueprint is better bc of production, fair enough but that's surface level understanding of both albums.

We got The Lost Tapes anyway so we don't really need to stay stuck in what I Am could've been

got urself a gun is phenomenal

he rapped his ass off on that one

i actually ended up turning off god’s son after Zone Out LMAO that’s not to shade the album though the first 4 songs were really good

I’ll restart it later

just didn’t have the energy to focus and finish so i played random songs instead

looking at illmatic it’s crazy damn near every song is considered an essential top tier rap song by many people

i still prefer stillmatic but illmatic is tuff

God’s Son review coming tonight maybe still need to finish listening

listened to Stillmatic like two more times since then though

top 5

1. Got Urself A Gun
2. Smokin
3. Rule
4. Ether
5. Destroy & Rebuild