Trivia / Illmatic

• Acclaimed Flop: Thanks to the intense bootlegging of the album, Illmatic initally flopped, despite it's hype and acclaim. To give you a good idea of how badly it flopped, it took seven years for it to get a Platinum certification.
• Content Leak: Like you wouldn't believe. Illmatic was so highly anticipated, it was prone to extreme bootlegging. It was so bad, at least one bootlegger had more than sixty thousand copies ready to go. Even other rappers like Tupac Shakur had a bootleg copy or two. Despite Columbia's efforts to rush the album, and curb all the bootlegging, this led to the album becoming an Acclaimed Flop on release.
• Enforced Method Acting: Nas saying "I don't know how to start this shit" on "N.Y. State of Mind"? That was legit. Nas had just written his verse, and genuinely had no idea how to start it, but realized DJ Premier was counting him down, and immediately launched into one of his most legendary verses in a single take.
• What Could Have Been:
  • "Nas Is Like" was written during the Illmatic sessions, but not recorded and released until I Am...
  • "I'm a Villain" was an early version of "N.Y. State of Mind", and had an entirely different beat, with significantly different lyrics.
  • Had Nas gotten his way, Large Professor would've executive produced the album, but he turned the offer down.
  • "Life's a Bitch" was intended to sample Mtume's "Juicy Fruit" instead of The Gap Band's "Yearning For Your Love", which would've predated Biggie's own take on the sample.

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