God’s Son occupies an intriguing space in Nas’s catalog. After two stellar releases recalibrated his standing among his peers, album #6 functioned as something of a soft reboot; a chance for Nas to move forward without a giant elephant taking up all the space in the room. The time between Stillmatic and God’s Son became the most prolific stretch of his career (impressive, considering he released two albums in 1999), and the hot streak continues with yet another strong body of work.

A good chunk of Nas’s post-Illmatic output saw him trying to find his place in a genre that had shifted considerably since his landmark debut, with varying results. God’s Son, by comparison, shows Nas finding his comfort zone, largely abandoning attempts at pop radio (“Hey Nas” perhaps being the lone exception). Instead, we get a lead single with a grimy beat and gunshots in the chorus (“Made You Look”), a post-“Ether” appraisal that’s less diss track and more a post-war recap (“Last Real Nigga Alive”), and an Alchemist-produced track that strings together random verses and bars with no hook (“Book of Rhymes”). The rapping is as impressive as ever, and Nas continues to peel back the layers, allowing us to see him as Nasir Jones; not Nasty or Esco.

“I Can” somewhat sums up the place Nas found himself in at the start of this next phase of his career. It became his highest-charting single at the time, and it’s a song I have a hard time imagining anyone besides Nas recording. It’s earnest, a bit silly, and deceptively catchy. It works because he’s earned his fans’ trust, and he rewards that trust by giving them the most honest representation of himself.