Album was smooth as fukk, and obviously in retrospect people went back and reevaluated because of Dilla's contributions... in real time it got pushback because it wasn't as free-form and fun as the first one, which people viewed as a more "pure" hip hop album. A lot of people thought this was more refined aka trying hard to be more commercial. Add in the abrupt transition from one main producer (J-Swift, who produced most of the first album, including Passin Me By, started smoking crack) to a new one and a lot of people just didn't know what to make of what they were hearing.
I personally loved it from jump, She Said remains one of my all time favorite joints, and Dilla's remix of it is bananas too. Hey You, Moment in Time, Drop, Devil Music all sound crazy to me still. Fatlip is rapping his ass off the entire album, but it turns out he hated the album and thought it was going to sound like shyt. With all the talent in the group it's a real shame we didn't get a couple more prime albums with all the members. Obviously Fat Lip struggled with addiction and Slim Kid Tre decided to do weird shyt like produce Brian Austin Green's album. Really one of the strangest timelines for a group that gave us (in my opinion) two classic albums.
