Why you'll love it...
There was a moment — before Drake was breaking every chart record, before Jay retired for the first time, before Kanye but after Biggie and Tupac — that the number one rapper on earth was a gravel-mouthed gangsta rapper who had somehow crossed over to the pop mainstream. He’d be known to his mother as Jeffrey and to everyone who loved him as Ja, but he was listed on his album covers as Ja Rule, and his third album, 2001’s Pain Is Love, was a bona fide, undeniable mega-hit of epic proportions. It’s hard to explain to people who weren’t sentient before 2002 what life was like when this album came out; you heard it everywhere, including at supermarkets in the Midwest and out of your mom’s minivan.
Thanks to its totemic singles — “Livin’ It Up,” “Always On Time,” and t...