Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Chicago Tribune
Encyclopedia of Popular Music
Entertainment Weekly	A+
Los Angeles Times
Orlando Sentinel
Q
The Rolling Stone Album Guide
Select	4/5
Spin Alternative Record Guide	7/10

3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of... is the debut album by American hip hop group Arrested Development, released on March 24, 1992. The album's chart success was the beginning of the popularization of Southern hip hop. 3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of... stood in stark contrast to the gangsta rap that ruled the hip hop charts in 1992 (such as Dr. Dre's The Chronic), in its focus on spirituality, peace and love. The album's title refers to the length of time it took Arrested Development to get a record contract.

The song "Tennessee" is part of the The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll list.

3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life Of... was released to widespread critical acclaim and was later voted as the best album of the year in The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics' poll.Entertainment Weekly's James Bernard praised it as a "fresh-sounding debut album" and referred to Arrested Development as "the anti-gangsta" and "perhaps rap's most self-reflective act."Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune wrote that the group "displays unusual worldliness, wisdom and awareness on its debut, immediately establishing itself as a major new voice in hip-hop", noting Speech's social themes and rejection of "macho boasting and gangster posing". In a negative assessment, Robert Christgau of The Village Voice assigned the album a "dud" rating and wrote that the album was "not horrible by any means" but "too often the beats shambled and the raps meandered", though he would later revise his rating to single out "Tennessee" as a "choice cut".

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