ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a brilliant lyricist from Queensbridge, bearing the weight of expectations. His part of the world wasn't making noise nationally then and he was supposed to be "the next Rakim." He released a great album with brilliant lyricism and an edge of the east coast street life. The entire hip hop world buzzed, but few bought it. The ones that did favored criminality, that was the way everybody making money in New York was starting to rhyme, so he did too. The Arabic origin of his name gave way to Italian stylings and flashy clothes, the sort of stuff that would have gotten him laughed out of the projects in his adolescence. He makes money with a second album of more commercial appeal and flips his whole script. By album number three, the intellect and lyricism are afterthoughts, killing and being "real gangstas" dominates, as the east imitates the west it once reviled, with "riders" up and down the Atlantic seaboard.

Such is the story of Nasir Jones, also known as Nas Escobar, the artist formerly known as Nasty Nas. With his third LP simply titled I Am, he dives headlong into Jay-Z's murky trails and becomes yet another smart guy from New York making nearly meaningless music.

The album has solid musical moments and some tastes of quality -- the Premier produced single "Nas is Like" is a lush litany of hip hop braggadocio lauded by many, a Twista imitation over the same sample Puffy used last year on "Big Things," the storytelling depicting a tragic end of discovering lover's infidelity, delicate strings over subtle drums on a Biggie/Tupac tribute. Guest shots by Puffy, Timbaland, Scarface , DMX and Aaliyah make the album's minimum commercial requirement, with hit-and-miss appearances (Aaliyah's chorus is fly, but Puffy's singing can induce vomiting in the hearing impaired). However, with monotonous and tinny sounding keyboard work on easily four tracks, been-there-done-that material about -- hey, this is new -- guns, drug dealing, murder, and anonymous and meaningless sex with women you barely know.

Once one settles in the category of a "gangsta," it limits what one can rap about. You see Scarface snow up, you know what's gonna happen. I'll come kill your enemies, you do the same for me. Good enough for Ice Cube and MC Eiht, so why not make it transcontinental? It's been done. How many times can you watch Godfather II before it bores you? Nas seems intent on finding out.

When Nas does try to show a level of consciousness, it is hampered by lackluster production and the feeling this song is out of place. "Ghetto prisoners, rise,, rise," the chorus intones, but should that leave Nasty Nas behind with Escobar? Again, Nas' lyrics shine ("You wanly buy time?/I'm the seller of minutes/ I give you every second low price") with surprising depth at points but overall never connect as a bigger picture. "Can I Talk To Ya?" features what starts as an indictment of oppressive forces in Amerikkka but ends beggin' in like Jesse Jackson: "we wanna be part of the establishment, nigga, that's what we steppin' up for." Nas sounds like he had big ideas, saying "combine all the cliques to make one gang" and to make a "nation of thugs," but these ideas, like his integrity, disappear in a cloud of fine ganjah smoke and the payments for iced out jewelry and expensive liquor, almost explaining the need to beg for a bigger piece of the pie as an establishment head just to pay for all that.

The good here, such as "Dr. Do-A-Lot," is overshadowed by monotony. Radio and a lot of consumers will have plenty of room for this candy coated crime story -- yes, one song samples a current R. Kelly single, a true hip hop faux pas. But years from now, the Nas songs you will hear on old school shows will be Illmatic, not self declarations.