Following the commercial and critical success of his 1996 sophomore album It Was Written, Nas returned with I Am… on April 6, 1999. Initially, he planned to release the album as a double album with the title I Am…The Autobiography, but the album was released as a single album after a number of the songs were leaked onto the Internet in MP3 format, one of the first albums to be bootlegged in this manner. Despite that setback, the album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 and achieved double platinum status with support from the singles “Nas Is Like” produced by DJ Premier, and the Puff Daddy-assisted “Hate Me Now.” The album cover continued the progression of Nas from a boy (Illmatic) to a man (It Was Written) to a king (I Am…)