Of course, he doesn't care one bit that it fell just short from earning an RIAA Gold certification for five hundred thousand pressed units, he still claims it as his favorite album. (Well, not really) Fully armed with the production team he wanted, AZ set out making what is now his favorite body of work. He just went about his BI and enlisted the Trackmasters again, along with producers like LES, Goldfinga and Nashiem Myrick who were famous for bringing a similar aesthetic to Poke & Tone's, as well as one surprise production choice. Naturally one would blow a gasket, but not Mr. Great news for AZ and co., until the label bafflingly left it off the album. Which they did by producing an absolute embarrassment of a song called Hey AZ, which had Comby-levels of radio pandering, so of course it was a minor hit. Cruz? Well, he still believed that the Trackmasters, responsible for half of the Firm album's production as well as the majority of the 1996 albums of its' members Nas & Foxy, had something to contribute to his musical visions. The resulting backlash hit The Firm's new members square in the jaw, and their reputations suffered.
That set a chain of events that led to the resulting album being one of the biggest flops in hip hop history, despite it allegedly selling over one million records in the US. By kicking Cormega out and replacing him with QB upstart Nature, who just wasn't ready then, The Firm lost their cohesion together. That is, until Steve Stoute fucked the whole venture up. Also, listen to its remix along with the first version of La Familia and you'll see too that shit was good money regarding the Firm. And it really seemed like it was heading in that direction after these four participated in Affirmative Action, one of the best posse cuts I've ever heard on Nas' sophomore album. Dre's stamp that legitimized his reign over mainstream rap while also being another landmark in the respective belts of its members Nas, AZ, Foxy Brown & Cormega. However, it also spawned quite a few works that had songs that are so garbage they dragged hip hop back down, such as the divisive nature of the late great Biggie's Life After Death, and the eponymous album by The Firm. This craze was responsible for quite a few works of art that helped elevate the genre, such as Mobb Deep's Hell On Earth, Nas' It Was Written & Reasonable Doubt by Jay-Z. Doe Or Die was also hailed as an instant classic that helped usher in the mafioso craze that the East Coast clung to for so long, started by Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx., yet another album acclaimed to the heavens.
In 1995, AZ dropped his debut album Doe Or Die off the strength of his appearance as the lone guest verse on Nas' Illmatic, which many hail as the greatest hip hop album of all time, a statement I've repeatedly said to be completely absurd because there is no such thing. Yeah, I still want to talk about Anthony Cruz.
0 kommentar(er)
