It Was Written Album Review

Spoken word scene-setting that runs barely a minute. Nas and his crew talking about moves, money and reputation over minimal instrumental backdrop. Functions as throat-clearing before the real album begins. Every 90s rap album had one of these. Most were skippable. This one is no exception.

L.E.S. flips a melancholic piano loop into one of the album's grittiest foundations, and Nas responds with bars about fame's complications and street life's persistent pull. The production feels closer to Illmatic's aesthetic than anything else here: sample-driven, moody, raw around the edges. Nas's flow locks into the pocket with technical precision, weaving between reflection and warning. The hook is minimal, almost absent, which lets the verses breathe without pop concessions. This is the Nas that Illmatic fans wanted: hungry, focused, uncompromising. The track sets expectations the rest of the album will struggle to maintain. Opening with this instead of a radio single was a statement of intent, even if the album never fully delivers on that promise. Best moment: the second verse where Nas dissects the psychology of violence with forensic detail.

Trackmasters build the album's most obvious crossover bid on an interpolated "Heatwave" chorus, and the result sounds exactly like what it is: Nas reaching for radio play without fully abandoning his lyrical density. The production gleams with the kind of polish that moves units and fills rotation slots. Nas raps about material success and its hollow center, which would be more effective if the track itself didn't sound so enamored with that same shine. The verses remain technically proficient, but the energy feels calculated rather than urgent. This is competent commercial rap from an artist whose baseline is excellence, which means it stands above most radio fare while falling below his own standard. The decision to include a remix later on the tracklist suggests even the label knew this was the album's commercial centerpiece.

The greatest concept track in 90s hip-hop. Nas raps from the perspective of a gun for four minutes, and every bar cuts deeper than the last. L.E.S. provides a haunting, stripped-down beat that lets the concept breathe without distraction. Nas traces the gun's journey from manufacturer to evidence locker, personifying the weapon with regret, pride and resignation. The technical execution is flawless: he maintains the conceit without gimmicks or winking at the audience, trusting the metaphor to carry emotional weight. The verses build toward an ending where the gun expresses remorse for the lives it took, which lands with devastating impact precisely because Nas never preaches or moralizes. He just tells the story and lets listeners draw their own conclusions. This is the Nas who could have spent his career chasing artistic ambition instead of commercial viability. The track sounds as urgent and relevant now as it did in 1996. Common's "I Used to Love H.E.R." set the template, but this surpassed it. No other song on It Was Written comes close to this level of focused creativity.

Dr. Dre and Trackmasters collaborate on a trunk-rattling posse cut featuring Foxy Brown, and the result is the album's most muscular moment of pure aggression. The production merges West Coast bounce with East Coast grit, creating a hybrid sound that feels geographically confused but sonically cohesive. Nas and Foxy trade verses about paranoia, loyalty and violence with the kind of chemistry that justifies the collaboration. Foxy holds her own, delivering bars with conviction that most male rappers would struggle to match. The hook is simple and effective, built for crowd response rather than melodic nuance. This is posse-cut rap done right: clear roles, complementary styles, a beat that hits hard enough to make the verses feel even sharper. The track works as an album cut and as a potential single, which is the balance It Was Written spends its entire runtime chasing.

L.E.S. returns with another dusty, sample-driven beat, and Nas responds with some of the album's most technically dense bars. The production sounds like a spiritual successor to Illmatic: grimy, claustrophobic, built for basement listening rather than radio rotation. Nas raps about street paranoia and violent retaliation with the kind of unflinching detail that made his debut essential. No hooks, no concessions to accessibility, no features diluting the vision. Just Nas over a raw beat for three and a half minutes. The verses move with the precision of a surgeon and the aggression of a corner enforcer. This is the album's purest moment of uncompromised street rap, the track that proves Nas could still deliver what Illmatic fans craved when he chose to. Every album needs at least one song this unforgiving. It Was Written needed three more.

Dr. Dre builds a cinematic West Coast backdrop, and Nas shares space with Dre himself on a track that feels like a bicoastal summit meeting nobody asked for. The production is polished and propulsive, classic mid-90s Dre with live instrumentation and carefully layered drums. Nas delivers competent verses that never quite match the beat's energy. Dre's contribution feels perfunctory, more cameo than collaboration. The track works as an album cut that adds sonic variety, but it never justifies its existence as a creative statement. This is what happens when labels engineer collaborations for strategic reasons rather than artistic chemistry. Not bad, not essential, just there.

Trackmasters create a mafioso backdrop for the first full Firm posse cut, and the result is more interesting for what it represents than what it achieves. Nas, AZ, Cormega and Foxy Brown cycle through verses with varying degrees of success. AZ matches Nas bar for bar, which is expected given his Illmatic pedigree. Foxy brings energy and attitude that elevates her verse beyond token female feature status. Cormega acquits himself well in his only appearance before label politics erased him from the group. Nas anchors the track with strong opening and closing verses. The production is sleek and cinematic, built for the mob-rap aesthetic that was dominating East Coast hip-hop. The track works, but it also exposes the album's identity crisis: is this a Nas album or a showcase for a supergroup that would collapse before it ever properly launched?

Trackmasters flip a moody sample into the album's best pure storytelling track after "I Gave You Power." Nas narrates a robbery-gone-wrong with cinematic detail and narrative discipline, building tension across three verses that function like a short film. The production stays minimal enough to let the story dominate without distraction. Nas traces every beat of the setup from initial seduction to violent conclusion, trusting the listener to stay engaged without cheap hooks or melodic crutches. His technical facility shines in the way he shifts perspective and tone across verses, maintaining the narrative momentum without sacrificing lyrical complexity. The ending lands with the kind of bleak finality that makes the story feel earned rather than sensationalized. This is classic East Coast storytelling rap executed at the highest level, proof that Nas could balance commercial ambition with artistic substance when he chose to. The track deserved to be a single but probably was too dark and too dense for radio programmers who wanted another "Street Dreams."

Trackmasters provide a smooth, melodic backdrop for Nas to explore the tragic trajectory of a young woman seduced by street life and material aspiration. JoJo Hailey handles the sung hook, which adds R&B accessibility without cheapening the song's thematic weight. Nas raps with empathy and observation rather than judgment, tracing the character's decline with novelistic detail. The storytelling is strong, the production is polished, and the execution is competent. But the track never escapes feeling like an obligatory "conscious" moment inserted to balance the album's violent content. It works as a palette cleanser, less essential than admirable in its intentions.

Live Squad produces one of the album's most aggressive cuts, a paranoid street anthem where Nas catalogs the behavior patterns of informants and fake friends. The beat is dark and propulsive, built on ominous strings and hard-hitting drums that sound closer to Mobb Deep's Hell on Earth than anything else on It Was Written. Nas delivers with the kind of focused intensity that the album's middle section often lacks. No features, no melodic concessions, just three minutes of Nas dissecting street treachery over a beat that refuses to let up. The track functions as a spiritual sibling to "Take It in Blood," another moment where the album remembers what made Nas matter in the first place. This is the sound of an artist who could have made an entire album this raw if commercial ambitions had not intervened.

Live Squad returns with another aggressive production, and Nas responds with verses about gun violence and its cyclical nature. The track opens with news audio about shootings, which immediately frames the content as societal commentary rather than glorification. Nas raps with urgency and technical precision, but the song never rises above solid album-cut status. The production is competent without being memorable. The verses are sharp without being quotable. This is the kind of track that fills space on a long album without actively detracting from the listening experience. Not a skip, not a standout, just present.

Stretch produces a minimal, loop-based track that feels like a callback to Illmatic's stripped-down aesthetic. Nas delivers a brief, almost freestyle-style verse focused on technical skill and street credibility. The track barely crosses two minutes, which suggests it may have been a leftover or last-minute addition. The brevity works in its favor: Nas says what he needs to say and exits before the concept wears thin. This is album-filler that knows its role and executes competently without overstaying its welcome. Better than most filler, worse than most intentional album cuts.

Trackmasters build the album's most ambitious crossover moment on a Kurtis Blow sample and a Lauryn Hill hook, and the result is a radio-ready anthem that dominated 1996 airwaves. The production is lush and aspirational, layered with live instrumentation that screams Grammy performance. Lauryn Hill's vocals on the hook add legitimacy and soul that elevate the track beyond typical pop-rap pandering. Nas raps about utopian visions of power and change with conviction, even if the verses never quite match the hook's emotional resonance. This is competent commercial rap from an artist capable of greatness, which makes it simultaneously impressive and disappointing. The track was necessary for Nas to achieve mainstream success. It was also the clearest evidence that chasing that success meant compromising the unfiltered street perspective that made Illmatic untouchable. The song aged better than it should have, mostly because Lauryn Hill's contribution carries enough weight to compensate for the track's calculated ambitions.

Trackmasters provide a menacing, piano-driven backdrop for one of Nas's most introspective album closers. The production feels appropriately dark and contemplative, built for reflection rather than trunk-rattling aggression. Nas delivers verses about violence, consequence and the psychological toll of street life with the kind of maturity that suggests growth beyond Illmatic's youthful intensity. The technical execution remains sharp, but the tone shifts from hunger to weariness, from observation to lived experience. No hooks, no features, just Nas closing the album with the kind of uncompromising bars that should have dominated the entire project. This is the sound of an artist who understands the weight of his choices, even if he could not quite commit to making the difficult ones consistently. The track works as a bookend to "The Message," bringing the album full circle thematically even if the journey between those two points wandered through too many unnecessary detours.

The remix version adds absolutely nothing new to the conversation. Same concept, slightly different production sheen, no artistic justification for its inclusion beyond label politics or misguided attempts at padding the tracklist. This is the album's most glaring misstep: repeating a song that was already the most commercially calculated moment on the entire project. Skip this. You already heard it fourteen tracks ago.