Nas - It Was Written [2LP]

Nas followed one of the most celebrated debuts in hip-hop history with It Was Written, the ambitious, cinematic second album that made him a superstar, here on a 140 gram double LP.

Released in 1996, two years after Illmatic, it found Nas trading some of that record's raw Queensbridge grit for bigger, glossier production, much of it from Trackmasters. The gamble worked. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and introduced Nas Escobar, a mafioso alter ego inspired by Pablo Escobar that gave his storytelling a new, larger-than-life frame.

The Message opens with a cold, clipped statement of intent, and Street Dreams flips the Eurythmics into a hustler's-eye view of success and its costs. If I Ruled the World (Imagine That), featuring Lauryn Hill, became one of the album's biggest hits, while I Gave You Power, produced by DJ Premier, tells its story from the point of view of a gun. Elsewhere, Dr. Dre handles production and vocals on one track, and the record marks the first appearance of The Firm, the group originally made up of Nas, AZ, Cormega and Foxy Brown.

It Was Written is a rapper at the peak of his powers stretching his vision to widescreen size, and across two LPs it still sounds huge.