Debut album of Brooklyn's finest

With Reasonable Doubt he knew he was on to something. He had to know. Maybe not about the career that would usher him from Dope Man to a CEO, certainly not transforming his business from selling kilos of cocaine to purchasing ownership shares of professional sports teams. But before the mainstream, the button up shirts, the Neptunes and the big pimping he had to have some idea of the power of his words, his persona, his message. Enter Reasonable Doubt: the genesis of a career that reads like the beginning of so many Horatio Alger rags to riches stories, with a twist. \nFilled with brutal honesty, undiluted, from the mouth of the beast, an album financed by drug money (could it begin any other way), the beauty is in the raw production and the conversational lyrics feel more reflective than boasting and allows for more head bobbing deep thought than booty shaking. "Whoever said illegal was the evil way out, couldn't understand the mechanics and the workings of the underworld," he claims, sharing with us the confessions of a man who mantra was "I never prayed to God, I prayed to Gotti."\nOne may think that all he raps about is drugs. Well that's because for the most part all he raps about is drugs -- on the surface at least. But suggesting that drugs are simply the point of Reasonable Doubt is equivalent to suggesting that films like "Scarface," "Requiem for a Dream," "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and "Traffic" are just about drugs. Like these films, this album is about people, a person and life. \nThe "bad guys" are given a face and humanity even. Its not gangster rap, it's reflection, struggle, the first chapter to his variation of the American Dream -- the beginning of Great Expectations, Lord or the Rings, "The Matrix" -- the album sets the tone for his life. One need look a little deeper and see a man on a journey struggling to live, and love life to the max, while simultaneously fighting to hold on to his soul. Fighting the power of guilt and regret to achieve his goals, a man reflecting, rather than boasting on his present situation, a man not yet aware of his power, but knowing that he is on to something huge, and willing to do anything to get succeed.