and his verses on the mixtapes always caught attention (throw the Bentley off a cliff / call that a Bentley drop...)

I fully buy he just didn't want to rap like that anymore, but they probably weren't pushing him either. His first mixtape run after he left was FULL of mid-90s New York jazz beats before he hooked up with Monster Beatz to make that Neptunes album, and then Ski and his current crew brought him back jazz's way for the most part. He knew what he wanted.

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"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz