The benefit of hindsight makes I Am… an interesting album to revisit. Initially meant to be an ambitious conceptual double album, many of the songs were leaked to the internet, causing Nas and Columbia Records to go back to the drawing board for new material. I Am… The Autobiography (the album’s original working title) became one of the earliest casualties of the burgeoning file-sharing era that would cast its shadow over popular music for years to come (fellow rapper Jay-Z would have to re-record portions of his fourth studio album the same year for the same reason).

Nas would inch a bit closer to his original vision a few years later with the release of The Lost Tapes, but for now, we’ll focus on the version of I Am… that saw the light of day. And this version, while still a good showcase for Nas’s talents, is a bit of a mixed bag. There’s some truly excellent material, like the DJ Premier double whammy of “NY State of Mind II,” somehow darker and more menacing than the original, and “Nas Is Like,” a beautifully constructed canvas for Nas to work with. There are also a few head-scratchers, like “Big Things,” which sees Nas clumsily trying to match his freewheeling delivery to the double-time beat, and “K-I-SS-I-N-G”‘s unfortunate chorus. “Hate Me Now” is triumphant as the lead single, and “We Will Survive” is a wonderful letter to BIG and Pac. Then there’s “I Want to Talk to You,” which sees L.E.S. doing his best (or worst, depending on your perspective) Timbaland circa ’99-2000 impersonation.

Considering the speed with which Nas was forced to scrap and re-record a substantial part of this album, the end result is pretty impressive. The production often falls back on some very common early millennium habits (“You Won’t See Me Tonight” isn’t as timeless as, say, “Big Pimpin’,” which came out that same year). But Nas’s rapping still impresses, and his messages still resonate. I Am… The Autobiography may be among the best rap albums we never got, but I Am… still serves as a solid entry into his canon.