Nas: It Was Written 2LP Gold & Black Marble Vinyl

Why you'll love it

This gold & black marble 2LP set dresses up the album that made Nas a household name. It debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, sold 270,000 copies in its first week and remains his best-selling record.

This edition

2LP set
Gold & black marble vinyl
Pressed in the EU

About the album

Follow-up albums don't come with much more pressure than the one after Illmatic. Nas answered it by going big: he teamed with the Trackmasters, polished up the beats, stepped into a slick, cinematic mafioso world and turned the Queensbridge poet into a full-blown star.

"If I Ruled the World (Imagine That)" with Lauryn Hill is a sunny, dreamy classic, "Street Dreams" flips Eurythmics into a hit, "The Message" opens with a wicked guitar loop, and "Affirmative Action" introduced The Firm with AZ, Foxy Brown and Cormega. Dr. Dre stops by on "Nas Is Coming," and DJ Premier still lands the gritty "I Gave You Power."

It went triple platinum, and in 2024 Billboard named it one of the 100 greatest rap albums of all time. Illmatic gets the headlines, and It Was Written has never seemed to mind.

Also at Kops: more Nas on vinyl · browse Hip Hop / R&B