I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death

NY state of mind? nah not me. When everyone says that illmatic is the greatest nasir jones album of all time, i have a difficult time disagreeing. Lyrically it's just unmatched. its like 'the godfather' - where you watch it and you cant say it wasnt great afterwards... BUT when your boys come over and want to watch a flick, you more often than not put in 'dont be a menace'. This is that sort of album...I implore you to check out an album that received far less acclaim, "it was written". this is your juice. this album kinda has a self-conscious attitude about it. with "i gave you power" (nas loves those metaphor songs) you can tell the the qb king still has the most creative/sicke prose that created so much buzz the first time. but then he jams with lauryn hill and it sounds amazing, and you hear him making songs with dre - you see he can be funky/west coast and sound good doing it. 'the message' even samples illmatic's most popular song - ny state of mind in the chorus with "I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death" and it shows he hasn't forgot about his first debut album to receive 5 mics, hes just seeing what else he can do. A mix between east and west in the mid 90s this album definitely didnt leave my car for awhile. Sandwiched between ill and still, please check out what was written.