I Am...

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Lore & Background

The album was originally to have been a double album titled I Am...The Autobiography. However, most of the original sessions were bootlegged forcing Nas to discard many songs and adjust the release to one disc. I Am... became one of the first major label releases to be widely leaked using MP3 technology. Some of the leaked songs were later released on the compilation LP The Lost Tapes in 2002. The concept of this album as can be seen by tracks such as 'Fetus' from The Lost Tapes was to be an autobiography of sorts for Nas. Although several bootleg versions have appeared on the internet over the years, an official version of the intended double album has never leaked and it remains unclear whether or not it was ever completed. An official two-LP pressing of the 'Autobiography' version (utilizing the 1999 leak tracklisting) was released by Columbia/Legacy/Sony for Record Store Day Black Friday on November 24, 2023.

In Their Own Story

Famed photographer Danny Hastings shot the iconic cover image for I Am... In order to make the mask featured on the cover, Hastings and his crew put a clay mold on Nas' face and poked air holes so he could breathe, but he almost suffocated after clay got lodged in his nose. 'The funny part was that the first attempt, Nas was getting asphyxiated. We almost killed Nas,' Hastings told MTV.com. 'We cleaned him up, and he was like, "Let's do it again!" [...] Nas was a true sport.' Hastings explained the meaning behind the cover: 'The first one, you have him being a boy, very young. The second was a little bit older. And the third one, he was a king. He already conquered the world. He was on top of the world. He was doing a lot of big things. We came with the concept of making a King Tut sarcophagus piece.'

Reader's Guide

The album debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200, selling over 470,000 copies in its first week of sales. I Am... would later be certified double platinum in the United States, making it Nas' second best-selling release behind It Was Written. Upon its release, I Am... received generally mixed reviews from critics. The two singles from I Am... were 'Hate Me Now' and 'Nas Is Like'. 'Hate Me Now' features Puff Daddy and is produced by D-Moet, Pretty Boy and The Trackmasters. It was a Billboard Hot 100 hit, and had a controversial music video directed by Hype Williams. The song had a version of the O Fortuna from Carl Orff's 'Carmina Burana.' 'Nas Is Like' is one of two tracks produced by DJ Premier who scratches vocal samples from Nas' 'It Ain't Hard to Tell' into the chorus. The album also contained the song 'We Will Survive', a tribute to Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G., which criticized his peers, most notably Jay-Z, who 'claimed to be New York's king' following B.I.G.'s death.

Did You Know?

• I Am... became one of the first major label releases to be widely leaked using MP3 technology.
• Nas almost suffocated during the cover photo shoot when clay got lodged in his nose while making the mask.
• An official two-LP pressing of the original 'Autobiography' version was released for Record Store Day Black Friday on November 24, 2023.
• The song 'We Will Survive' is a tribute to Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. and criticized Jay-Z.
• The album sold over 470,000 copies in its first week and debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200.