[4] According to AllMusic biographer Andy Kellman, the album was an "exemplary" release of the retro-inspired neo soul genre, although Bilal's subsequent work would become increasingly distinctive and modern.

[7] He also frequented the city's Wetlands Preserve nightclub and met members of the Soulquarians (including Common, The Roots, and Erykah Badu), a rotating collective of experimental black music artists who often collaborated on each other's recordings.

[6] After signing to Interscope in 1999, Bilal wrote songs and improvised with a band at a warehouse in New Jersey in preparation for the album's recording,[9] which took place at Electric Lady Studios in New York around 1999 and 2000.

[10] In December 1999, while reviewing Bilal's Prince tribute performance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Village Voice reported that the album was expected by Spring of next year.

However, the release encountered delays as Interscope pressured the singer into collaborating with more popular record producers,[11] including Dr. Dre and Soulquarians member J Dilla, who helped refine Bilal's stylistically-varied and free-form approach into more structurally-defined songs to the label's liking.

[24] In an essay accompanying the Pazz & Jop critics poll, in which 1st Born Second finished in the top 100, Robert Christgau named Bilal among the "profusion of R&B also-rans" that he hopes "will develop material nobody can deny".