His whole career was a disappointment.
Those early tapes showed so much potentail, but he got stuck in major label bullshyt and by the time he finally got his debut out it was too late. Made worse by the fact the album itself wasn't worth the wait.
Then got involved in a lot of unncessary beef and extra shyt.
All in all, just a terribly managed career.
No doubt.
I think he also messed up early on by trying to switch up his image. When he dropped that 12" vinyl on Rawkus (Say Yes and the B-side was Contraband) he really was like this mix of Nas and 50 Cent. He had a good bit of violence on his records. He dropped the Warning Shots and The Yardfather tapes. Then Abandoned Nation tape and was changing things up to become a little more socially conscious. Which was dope.
But he kept upping the ante on that and by the time he linked with Just Blaze he was marketing himself was being super conscious and positive. That's cool and there's nothing wrong with that, but a lot of his songs did get more....
borderline preachy? I can't think of a better term. And don't get me wrong, I still fukked with Greatest Story Never Told and followed the making of and the release of that album closely. But I did prefer Warning Shots/Yardfather era Saigon over GSNT era and beyond Saigon.
But obviously the whole fiasco surrounding GSNT didn't help him, and I do think he burned some bridges during his stint at Atlantic. He burned some bridges with some big producers that helped him early on by giving him free beats when he got out of prison. He had the public feud with Just Blaze during the making of the album. he had some drinking problems. Then the battle with Joe Budden (that he arguably lost). Etc.
When I spit the room temperature change
and never delivered.
