but as an album, it's not as good as Illmatic. I'm not mad at anybody who thinks it is though, as long as they don't hold that opinion based purely on contrarianism and can articulate their reasoning.


I'm not sure the writer of that Complex piece effectively did that. He did make one good point about the rhyme schemes and lyricism being as good or better than Illmatic, but after that it was all fluff and ramblings about "squeaky clean production" and Nas' Escobar persona.