Nothing Was the Same Review

Fifty nine minutes, thirteen songs, and not one of them padding a streaming count. That alone separates it from everything he made afterwards. Tuscan Leather is a six minute opener with three beat changes and no hook, a genuinely arrogant way to start a commercial album, and it works because the rapping is the best of his life. Hold On We're Going Home is a synth pop single with no rapping on it at all and it went everywhere.

Too Much and From Time are the quiet middle. Wu-Tang Forever is a beautiful joke that turns a rap crew's chant into a love song. The writing is still mostly about him and mostly about status, but he is funny about it here in a way he would soon stop being. The album is warmer than the one before and sharper than anything since. This is the peak of the run, and the decline that followed was slow enough that people still argue about when it started.