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I don't know about "hard as shit", but I was way too deep in my backpacker sensibilities to appreciate or recognize the genius of his initial run at the time, with one exception. I always thought Ride With Me was dope.
At the time, it was all about Pharoahe, Mos/Reflection Eternal/Black Star, Dilated, Slum Village, Lyricist Lounge on one side, and the NY street cats like Wu, Nas, Mobb Deep, Jay, etc on the other end.
I still think the whole, "Andele, andele, mami Eiiiiiiiii, uh oh!" hook on EI is corny as fuck. but it is catchy.
But those Jay E beats are far better than I ever gave them credit for, and Nelly was a special talent. We've had singing rappers before, but he's unique IMO.
He pretty much owns this category for me.
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