I’ve been expecting this to drop ever since I saw The Lost Tapes floating around last week. Lots of rare and previously unreleased material are included. AZ’s been on his grind for like 15 years, pay the man his dues and cop this here.

AZ is a career rapper. That doesn’t seem like much of a compliment; however, when you think back to his historic, career-making, big-break verse alongside his Queens compatriot, Nas, on “Life’s a Bitch” from the latter’s 1994’s groundbreaking Illmatic, then you can put into perspective a longstanding career that continues to enjoy success some decade and a half later. So much has changed since that watermark release and in that time, other verbalists have come and gone yet AZ remains and has carved out a body of work worthy of deeper examination. Anthology: B-Sides & Unreleased is that deeper examination. In addition to collecting B-sides from AZ’s prodigious output of unreleased material such as “Knowledge Is Freedom,” Anthology: B-Sides & Unreleased features an impressive round-up of guest appearances from Hip Hop’s finest including Nas, Cassidy, M.O.P., Twista, and Consequence. But don’t get it twisted, this is all about AZ and his collective body of work and Anthology: B Sides & Unreleased runs the gamut from “Sit ‘Em Back Slow,” a single from The Format that features M.O.P., to the remix of “Problems” and includes unreleased songs like “Baby Come Home” and “No Strings attached.” Anthology: B-Sides & Unreleased - It’s AZ from A to Z.

Tracklist after the jump.

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