Nas - Death Of Escobar (2001)

As fans of rapper Nas are probably aware, rumours have surrounded his enigmatic album 'Death Of Escobar' for many years, with no-one quite seeming to know exactly what it is... A concept album? The original title for 'Stillmatic'? A fan made-up fake title? There's been a lot of bogus tracklists and downloadable bootlegs floating around the internet for years now - none of them giving a proper representation of what the project really was, including opinions that it was just a working title that Nas and Columbia used when working on and building up hype for 'Stillmatic', or that Nas had intended to release two albums together, one as an introduction to the other. In 2014 information came to light implying that 'D.O.E.' was in fact a proper album that was completed and scrapped close to its original release date. It was actually reviewed in VIBE magazine in their February 2001 issue, where it was awarded a glowing 4* review. In this review the album is titled as 'D.O.E. Limited Edition - Volume 1 (Death Of Escobar)', and it speaks of it as a project made up from new tracks, bootlegs and remixes while completely lacking skits. Specific tracks mentioned there are 'The Foulness', 'The Rise & Fall', 'Tales From Da Hood', 'Your Mouth Got You In It', and 'Poppa Was A Playa'. This was followed by a news update sent out by Sony Music Street Team UK to those signed up to their mailing list back in early 2001, providing an early tracklist for the project (including producers and publishing credits) along with the following message: 

"THE FORTHCOMING NAS ALBUM IS ON HOLD AT THE MOMENT, HERE'S THE LATEST PLAN - Nas wants to release 'Death of Escobar' first with 'Stillmatic' to follow. 'Death of Escobar' is the bootleg/sessions project. The project will feature the tracklisting below plus three new tracks. This tracklisting could and probably will change. The three new tracks will explain Escobar's death." 

From this, we can conclude that 'Death Of Escobar' was likely a kind of introduction album, explaining the death of Nas's alter-ego, while 'Stillmatic' was intended to be a re-birth album, with contrasting styles respectively. The tracklist from the Sony update has been used for the basis of this reconstruction, although it was noticed that although 'Poppa Was A Playa" wasn't included in the Sony update, it was mentioned in the VIBE review, so that's on here as well. The three new tracks that were not yet completed when the announcement was made might never have been completed for all we know. On listening to the album it's evident that the majority of the tracks find Nas in an introspective mood, reflecting on his life and career over moody, midtempo beats, often favouring piano and/or string samples. This actually works well in the context of the record, as the depressive mood pieces like 'Rise & Fall', 'Drunk By Myself' and 'My Own Worst Enemy' are intercut with straight up boom bangers like the underrated 'The Foulness', 'Tales From Da Hood' and the 'Hard 2 Tell' remix. Thanks go to The Lost Tapes blog for all the info, and for putting this together.  

Track listing

01 My Way  
02 You Don't Know Me (Hardest Thing 2 Do) 
03 Your Mouth Got You In It 
04 Rise & Fall  
05 U Gotta Love It 
06 Make It Last Forever
07 Worst Enemy Is Me 
08 The Foulness (Interlude) (feat. Nature) 
09 Sinful Living 
10 Never Gonna Give It Up (feat. The Product G&B) 
11 Tales From Da Hood 
12 Drunk By Myself 
13 Hard 2 Tell 
14 Projects 2 Hot (feat. 50 Cent & Nature) 
15 Poppa Was A Playa 
16 Seeds Of Heaven