The following year, he led his protégé group Junior M.A.F.I.A., a team of himself and longtime friends, including Lil' Kim, to chart success.ĭuring 1996, while recording his second album, Wallace became ensnarled in the escalating East Coast–West Coast hip hop feud. Wallace was awarded the 1995 Billboard Music Awards' Rapper of the Year. The album made him the central figure in East Coast hip hop, and restored New York's visibility at a time when the West Coast hip hop scene was dominating hip hop music. His debut album Ready to Die (1994) was met with widespread critical acclaim, and included his signature songs " Juicy" and " Big Poppa". īorn and raised in Brooklyn, New York City, Wallace signed to Sean "Puffy" Combs's label Bad Boy Records as it launched in 1993, and gained exposure through features on several other artists' singles that year. His music was often semi-autobiographical, telling of hardship and criminality, but also of debauchery and celebration. Wallace became known for his distinctive laid-back lyrical delivery, offsetting the lyrics' often grim content. Rooted in the New York rap scene and gangsta rap traditions, he is widely considered one of the greatest rappers of all time. With the supreme eye for detail that made him such a master of storytelling, Biggie lavishes specific details that make the listener envision the scene: the dogs barking, the blood on the sneakers of the friend giving him the bad news, how he knows him from slinging on the 16th floor.Christopher George Latore Wallace (May 21, 1972 – March 9, 1997), better known by his stage names the Notorious B.I.G., Biggie Smalls, or simply Biggie, was an American rapper and songwriter.
Arguably the darkest song in his entire discography, “Somebody’s Gotta Die” details Biggie hearing about how his friend C-Rock just got shot by a guy named Jason, and how he plans his revenge. The sound of Big’s heart rate monitor flatlining, a signal he is experiencing cardiac arrest, is still fading as the first beat on the album kicks in. Puffy is lamenting his demise as we hear dramatic piano keys give way to falling raindrops. The Beginning The introduction on Life After Death picks up where Biggie last left us on the outro to Ready to Die, with his suicide still ringing in our ears as he’s being rushed to the emergency room. Despite having some genuinely great material on their double-disc extravaganzas, neither JAY-Z nor Nas could pull off that kind of excess. It’s 24 tracks deep, and that’s not even counting a multitude of skits peppered between those two dozen songs. At first glance, Life After Death shouldn’t work.
Still, Big never sacrificed any of the narrative grit-look no further than “Ten Crack Commandments” or his much-imitated, never-duplicated flow.įew albums in hip-hop history make a stronger argument for this case than The Notorious B.I.G.’s Life After Death. Too Short & Puff Daddy) 20 - My Downfall (feat.
Lil Kim) 15 - Going Back To Cali 16 - Ten Crack Commandments 17 - Nasty Boy 18 - Sky's The Limit (feat. Mase & Puff Daddy) 10 - Niggas Bleed 11 - I Got A Story To Tell 12 - Notorious Thugs 13 - Miss U 14 - Another (feat.
Interlude 09 - Mo Money Mo Problems (feat. Jay-Z & Angela Winbush) 07 - What's Beef 08 - B.I.G. Life After Death Instrumentals 01 - Somebodys Gotta Die 02 - Hypnotize 03 - Kick In The Door 04 - Fuck You Tonight (feat.