It's an earned reputation, no excuse for an album solely produced by [a still prime] Kanye (Nasir) to be so lacking in quality—especially when just two months prior Push was able to curate an AOTY contender working with that very same man.
And going back to God's Son, you can even make the same argument as the Pusha T one that Lakey da Kid (who was in his camp around the time) chose better Alchemist beats for The 41st Side ("Crush Linen", "Let Em Hang", "We Gon Buck") than what Nas ended up using on his own project. That's inexcusable—"Mastermind" is the last type of beat you would feature from a producer who was shaking up the industry with bangers like "We Gonna Make It", "Definition of a Don", "Black Magic", etc...
Look at the producers Nas worked with in any era beyond Illmatic and It Was Written—you'll find a long list of lesser-known contemporaries, without his cachet or influence, who managed to get classic beats from the very same producers that were giving Nas straight duds.
And I see no one mentioned The Firm album? How does Will Smith manage to pick better Trackmasters beats for his project (Big Willie Style) than you? It's a consistent theme throughout his career outside of his first two albums.
And going back to God's Son, you can even make the same argument as the Pusha T one that Lakey da Kid (who was in his camp around the time) chose better Alchemist beats for The 41st Side ("Crush Linen", "Let Em Hang", "We Gon Buck") than what Nas ended up using on his own project. That's inexcusable—"Mastermind" is the last type of beat you would feature from a producer who was shaking up the industry with bangers like "We Gonna Make It", "Definition of a Don", "Black Magic", etc...
Look at the producers Nas worked with in any era beyond Illmatic and It Was Written—you'll find a long list of lesser-known contemporaries, without his cachet or influence, who managed to get classic beats from the very same producers that were giving Nas straight duds.
And I see no one mentioned The Firm album? How does Will Smith manage to pick better Trackmasters beats for his project (Big Willie Style) than you? It's a consistent theme throughout his career outside of his first two albums.
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