And on his 10th studio album, Nas found that stirring balance between slickness (J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League, Swizz Beatz) and elevated street griminess (Buckwild, Salaam Remi); and it made for one of the rapper's strongest overall releases. At the time, critics and fans took note of the Queensbridge legend's ever-present maturation, and the stellar lineup of collaborators he lined up for the project made it one of his most anticipated projects.

Of course, the majority of the talk swirling around Life Is Good was the very-public split between Nas and Kelis. The Queensbridge rapper and the genre-bending chanteuse from Harlem seemed to be a match made in music heaven; a fixture onstage and on red carpets together. They married in 2005, only for things to deteriorate to the point of divorce four years, when the seven-months pregnant Kelis filed for separation.

They'd seemed like a perfect match: the ice-cold rhymer and his fire-haired R&B chanteuse.

They'd met in 2002 at Diddy's MTV Video Music Awards afterparty; and in 2004, Nas proposed. The couple married on Jan. 8, 2005 in Atlanta, Georgia, with Kelis famously rocking a nontraditional green chiffon dress. In 2008, they famously hit the red carpet at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards with Kelis rocking a jacket emblazoned with N*GGER in anticipation of the rapper's controversial ninth album, (the project would be eventually released officially as Untitled later that year.)

But on Apr. 30, 2009, Kelis officially filed for divorce from Nas, citing “irreconcilable differences.” At the time of the filing, Kelis was seven months pregnant with their son, Knight. The divorce was finalized in May 2010.

"Bye Baby" was the song most explicitly about the divorce. But the J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League-produced "No Introduction" gets things off on-topic, as his ex-wife gets the first of several mentions here. But Nas isn't solely focused on his personal history as far as matrimony, he's still zeroed in on cementing his legacy. On "Loco-Motive," Nas reunites with longtime collaborator Large Professor for a track meant to deliberately evoke the feeling of classic 90s spirit. Nas acknowledges as much near the end of the song, both affirming and mocking those who seem to be forever preoccupied with his musical past.

Even though Large Pro, Salaam Remi and the aforementioned J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League feature heavy on Life Is Good, the album is most prominently carried by the sonic backdrops of No I.D. The Chicago-born legend found a serious musical groove with Nasir Jones, and it's evident throughout Life Is Good.

"We worked on maybe ten songs, at minimum," No I.D. told COMPLEX back in 2012. "It was an interesting thing because the first week of sessions—if we could have recorded those conversations... My engineer would be in sometimes and he would pull me to the side and be like 'Yo, what y’all said to each other, and just that exchange of information should be in a museum.'”

"Those conversations just were so important and damn near—you could put it in a movie. So it was all the information we were exchanging and me being a cat that when he was coming in music trying to establish what he was doing and me coming in at the same time trying to establish what I was doing... I would sometimes tell him something and he would be like, 'Well I was there when this happened.' And Eric B would go there and so on and so forth. But it was all setting the stage for me to say, 'Look I know they want to get something for the kids and the kids want this and that, but for me? I just want Nas.' That’s it. I don’t even have a calculation on what’s going on right now. Because the people that love Nas didn’t die. They didn’t disappear. They just want you to be you."

On the stellar "Queens Story," Nas and longtime collaborator Salaam Remi offer a perfectly epic slice of NYC street rap, the kind of thing Nas helped set the standard for. A truly dramatic gospel-esque organ opens "Accident Murderers," another No I.D. production, and the song finds Nas teaming up with Rick Ross for a harrowing story concept, told in 2nd person.

The album drew raves because of Nas reaching into his high-profile personal life to address his failings as a husband and as a father. Like any honest artist, he veers between admitting his missteps and wagging his finger. But it made for one of the most visible examples of a rapper approaching middle age with candor and creativity. Aside from "Bye Baby," the introspection of "Daughters" is the album's most autobiographical moment. Nas opens up about raising a teenage girl, admitting his own faults and tossing in just enough old school patriarchy to wind up trending on social media for all the wrong reasons.

"A lot of times, when you do a record or a new album, you’re kind of re-introducing yourself to the rap world or the music world," Nas would explain years later. "So the first song had to be reminding people like, let’s go through a story with me on who I am, you know? I wanted to lay it all out. The self-censoring stuff were lines that fell on the editing floor. I’d think some things, then go, 'Nah, can’t reveal that.' I exaggerated a little bit. Say, for example, 'syrup sandwiches and sugar water' was a thing that a lot of kids in my neighborhood ate. I didn’t grow up needing sugar water. There were days when there was nothing there and groceries are on their way and we remembered a story: some of our poorer friends had syrup sandwiches and we tried it and I hated it. But I remember kids swearing by these terrible, makeshift meals, and it was memories like that that wound up in the music."

In 2012, Nas staked his claim for "grown man rap." But he also kickstarted a late career resurgence that continues well into the 2020s. Life Is Good was the beginning of Nas post-35 years old, opening up possibly more than he'd ever done in his career. And, along with his ex-wife and his daughter, there was another woman who's connection to the rapper loomed large over the project.

Nas and Amy Winehouse had been musical kindred spirits for years. When the acclaimed singer-songwriter died in 2011 at the age of 27, it devastated Nas. The late soul singer and the Queens-born rapper share a birthday, September 14th, and Yasiin Bey once talked about Winehouse's admiration for the Queensbridge legend.

“I saw her one time and she was kind of, you know, out of it, and Nas was in town and she was so sick, cus she was such a Nas fan,” Bey recalled in an interview with The Midnight Miracle Podcast. “It was so adorable. It was so sincere, too, she was like, completely starstruck and geeked out. And Nas was honored, too. … And that was one of the times I saw her really happy.”

Nas paid homage to Amy with the posthumous duet "Cherry Wine," and it makes for one of the most bittersweet moments on the album. In saluting his friend, in admitting the complexities of being a dad, in recognizing the pain of divorce; Nas gave us one of his most emotional raw projects. And he showed just how maturing men can craft exceptional Hip-Hop. It was inspired by Amy.

“It’s a bittersweet feeling to do something with her now that she’s not here," Nas would say of the song. "I’m happy. The sweet part is that fans have new music from her, new because they’ve never heard it. The bitter part is that she’s no longer her to really give it to us and deliver her music."