Agreed on “The Watcher”. More of that.

But I don’t know about the beats being wack in 96-97. I think it was just the direction on the Firm album that was off. The overly commercial Firm Biz single, and not having Nas and AZ together on damn near every song was the main problems IMO. Thought the beats that Dre did were strong. Phone Tap and Firm Fiasco were 10/10 to me. In fact, not having enough Dre tracks was another flaw with the album given how much he was associated with the album. If he did every track and Nas/AZ were on every track, it wouldn’t be a “flop”.