I mentioned the other day in our post of I Am… Original Samples, that I Am was originally supposed to be a double album entitled I Am… The Autobiography. I’m alway intrigued by unreleased music and original album configurations and I figured it’d be nice to hear this album the way Nas originally intended it to be heard. A lot of these tracks were later released on The Lost Tapes, but some are still unreleased to this day (although leaked to the Internet). So what I did was compile the second disc to I Am… The Autobiography, based off information found around the Internet. What do you think… would the inclusion of this second disc have made I Am a better album?
- Fetus
- a song that describes Nas’ birth through his mother’s womb. This song was later released on The Lost Tapes.
- Poppa Was A Playa
- another song that describes Nas’ personal life; however, this one is about growing up with his father Olu Dara, which was later released on The Lost Tapes.
- Drunk By Myself
- this track describes Nas rhyming as an alcoholic, also released on The Lost Tapes.
- Blaze A 50
- a twisted tale where Nas is at his best; released on The Lost Tapes.
- Wanna Play Rough
- a gangster song which depicts a failed ambush on Nas’ Escobar persona, which was produced by Dame Grease and contains a sample from “The Message”. It was placed on a compilation album Live On Lenox.
- Sometimes I Wonder
- a street song that pays respect to the streets. This track features Nature and is still unreleased.
- Hardest Thing To Do Is Stay Alive
- another twisted tale that depicts the drug game. This track is still unreleased.
- U Gotta Love It
- Nas breaks down street life over a smooth beat which includes a sample of AZ from It Was Written’s “Affirmative Action”. This track can be found on The Lost Tapes.
- Amongst Kings
- the sequel to the staged suicide “Undying Love”, where Nas pleads with God for a second chance. “Amongst Kings” has Nas telling a story of being in the afterlife after begging for his life back and gets judged by God, who decides to give him another chance and sends him back as Natradamus. This track can be found on some international versions of I Am.
- Pray
- this track features the Bravehearts and can be found on the cassette version of I Am as a bonus track.
- Find Ya Wealth
- a motivational song which was later released on QB’s Finest.
- Day Dreamin, Stay Schemin
- Amusing track where Nas taunts people who want to rob him. It remains unreleased.
- Project Windows
- a song that describes childhood in the projects, it features Ron Isley and was later released on Nastradamus.
- My Worst Enemy
- a song where Nas talks about his life and decisions he made on the street but looks back and realizes his worst enemy was himself. This track is still unreleased.
- The Rise And Fall
- a song where Nas explains all the hardships he was going through in his career from the release of Illmatic to the release of It Was Written, where he supposedly fell off but rose back to the top. It contains samples from “Take It In Blood” and “Escobar ‘97″ and remains unreleased.
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I was in college at this time and Napster was becoming the “rage.” Many releases were bootlegged via the internet (Inspectah Deck’s “Uncontrolled Substance” comes to mind as well). I think the inclusion of some, but not all of these songs would have made “I Am” and “Nastradamus” better albums.
I personally like all of Nas’s albums. The content of his rhymes have basically stayed the same…street joint, club/radio joint, introspective joint, story telling joint, political joint, etc. The production has changed somewhat, but when you drop a perfect album such as “Illmatic” its hard to top that. Nothing he has done after “Illmatic” has even come close. I’m still a big, big, big fan of “It Was Written.”
the cover says auobio…
I got the same feeling as Thomas… I remember all these as Napster tracks.. I got my first computer in 2001, and as a huge hip hop fiend it was instand download overload as I discovered all sorts of hidden and unreleased gems that weren’t on the albums I had bought. Kev, another good look.
LOL…ooops! thanks SoulClap
Nice compilation Kevin, even though we won’t know how the real deal would have look like. I don’t think a double disc version would have made it better and to be honest I Am… is already a Classic LP to me, cause it always reminds me to the first CD’s I bought and the time I started listening to Rap.
There was some great sh*t on the Lost tapes album! Seems like a lot of these joint came from this one…
Back in 99 i was kicking it with my boy from Philly and he had a vesion of I am that had a lot of these tracks on it. I was hyped bout the album but when It came out and i bought it, apart from 3 songs i was kinda let down.
I think they should have taken NY state of mind part 2 ( arguably one of primo’s top 5 best beats of all time ), undying love and ghetto prisoners off the CD added them to this line up and put it out as one CD.
The tracks here are more introspective with better beats than the official release. These joints really gave you a look into Nas’s mind more.
Tracks like Big things, money is my bitch etc were’nt really saying much compared to stuff like Amongst kings, drunk by myself or worst enemy. Even storywise Blaze a 50 is way more detailed and graphically stunning than Small world.
Most importantly these joints made you FEEL something. When one of my cousins died i remember pulling out an old tape which had “sometimes i wonder” on it and buring an el walking through my neighborhood at the time and when Nas was doing the third verse talking bout his dead friends i just lost it and started crying cause the beat and rhyme just pulled it out of me.
It’s really a shame that these song were’nt put out the way they were supposed to ( similar thing happend with Mobb Deep’s murda muzik ) but thats the game. Good looking out on posting these joints.
Peace
I remember the album… I had it in my disc player a lot that summer, and I recall the great songs and very deep lyrics.. But I think that some of the things on the album two didnt make the first cut - Personally, I record way to many tracks and and pick out the favorites with a first cut, and then pick out the seconds, that I cant spare… Then the rest gets their place in the catogory “Did try, but didn’t make it”
I like the tracks on disc two, and blaze a 50 and amongst kings should have been on disc one…
I can remember reading that Nas scraped the whole concept for the double album. I want to say he recorded all new tracks for both albums. “The Lost Tapes” is probably the probably closest to the intended “I Am…” double disc than what was released. If you listen to the unreleased joints (and “The Lost Tapes”) the theme is evident (to me anyway). What was released didn’t have that cohesion to me. I still like both albums…even Nastradamus. I can listen to “Project Window” all day….great song.
nice compilation of tracks. I remember the same thing happen with nastradamus, a bootleg released made them nix the original project. it wasn’t a time for the double disc but it would have been great to listen to have. Like someone said above illmatic was classic and to top it would have been a hard thing to do.
Thanks for this compilation, i’m getting into Nas more and more…
Seems like it is down…re-up please…
pz
nope, link’s still good
link’s down. i keep getting this message “The requested page was not found on urlcash.net”
http://rapidshare.com/files/124286375/I_Am_The_Autobiography.zip
Thanks Kev. Best website alive.
firstly, props Kev for running the best blog ever
secondly, jus like you, unreleased music in their original configurations fascinate me also
if you know anymore please keep us devotees in the loop
this original config shat on the released album, damn
any how excellent blog mate
peace.
The song/interlude After Life was also supposed to be part of the album it’s the interlude between Undying Love and Amongst Kings… or so I hear. I also hear it in the songs the very beginning of After Life (Interlude) you can hear a bit of the guitar from undying love and on Amongst kings you can hear the end of After Life. Also I think Second Coming would have been on it
if only I AM wasnt bootleged and realesed as the orginal it nas would have 3 straight classics
ay diddnt the same thing happen with mobb deep murda muzic
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[...] a compilation of Nas‘ previously unreleased tracks. Some from the bootlegged second disc of the original double album version of I Am. The other tracks were underground singles and tracks recorded during the Stillmatic [...]