The Firm - The Album - 1997 - Aftermath
The story starts like this: Nas creates a supergroup called The Firm. He recruits Foxy Brown, AZ and Cormega. They create one incredible track on It Was Written called "Affirmative Action." Then they drop a remix of it - that's an entirely new song that's also incredible. People get excited. They hire Dr. Dre and The Trackmasters to produce their album. Some drama goes on and Cormega is replaced by the less exciting Nature. The album drops, following the huge success that was It Was Written. Then you press play. The album starts out pretty good. Opener "Firm Fiasco" is solid. "Phone Tap" is creepy (and although produced by Dre. is reminiscent of Mobb Deep). "Executive Decision" samples Whodini's "Five Minutes Of Funk." Things are going well. And then... it just kind of fizzles. The Album is mostly front-loaded. Suddenly you start to realize how many of these 19 tracks are skits. You start to wonder why Dre or The Trackmasters were needed to make so many generic sounding beats. You start to wonder why a supergroup that has Nas, Foxy and AZ would need so many guests! And then the whole things comes to an anticlimactic end. The Album is not terrible, but it is terribly underwhelming. It's a nice curio for Nas fans. And it's fun to think about what could have been.