The years between 1996’s It Was Written and 1999’s I Am… were filled with their share of disappointments. The Firm’s collaborative album was a flop, and Nas’s ambitious comeback album became a casualty of heavy bootlegging. It’s understandable that he’d want to get to work as swiftly as possible to wash away the stink of that disappointment, whether it existed in the eyes of fans or in his own mind. Unfortunately, the album that emerged from this effort triples down on the mistakes of I Am…, while offering little in terms of highlights.

Let’s start with the good. Album singles “Nastradamus” and “You Owe Me” show Nas slotting himself nicely into the late ’90s jiggy rap soundscape, veering dangerously close to guilty pleasure territory relative to his grimier material. “Come Get Me” continues his winning streak with DJ Premier, and “Project Windows” adds another chapter to his growing collection of melancholic hood narratives, made all the more bleak by Ronald Isley’s mournful vocals. From there, the album begins to show signs of its rushed nature, with songs like “Shoot ’em Up,” “Big Girl,” and “Quiet Niggas” suffering from bland production, cringe-worthy hooks, or in some cases, both. “Family” falls a bit flat compared to previous Mobb Deep collaborations, and “New World” doesn’t offer quite enough to make up for its uninspired Toto sample.

We all know Nastradamus was the catalyst for the resounding career resurgence that would take place just two years later, so it’s a bit easy to look past this brief misstep with the understanding of what comes next (funnily enough, pretty much every “Nas picks bad beats” accusation can be blamed on this one album). If it took a few clunkers to give us perhaps the most important rap beef this side of Biggie and Pac, I suppose that’s a price we should be glad to have paid.