Revisionist History #2: Two Alternate Takes on Life After Death (1997)

I had hoped to get back to these sooner, but we’re finally back with a new entry in the Revisionist History series, in which I take an existing album and play around with the track sequencing in an effort to come up with something more cohesive or entertaining or whatever the challenge happens to be. (Now all I have to do is publish another Max’s Book Club entry and I’ll be set.)

The second lucky hip hop album to be given this treatment is The Notorious B.I.G.’s double-disc posthumous effort, Life After Death, also known as the last album the late rapper had any input in prior to his passing. Building upon what he and executive producer-slash-label boss Sean “Puffy” Combs had crafted with his debut, Ready to Die, Life After Death was a calculated attempt at world domination, featuring songs designed to appeal to East Coast hip hop heads, West Coast fanatics, and everyone in the flyover states, with Biggie’s vocals occupying space atop beats that would either bang on the radio or, in the man’s words, “leave [you] on the pavement”. It was released to widespread acclaim and ultimately sold over eleven million copies (a combination of both streams and physical units), none of which the man was able to enjoy during his lifetime. Joining me in my quest to revise history once again is Lord AAA (of Boom Bap Reviews), also known as frequent contributor shoe-in. 

Lord AAA actually proposed today’s post challenge to me, having been inspired by his tinkering with each album he loves to ensure the best listening experience. This time around, however, instead of just chopping the double-disc affair down to one, I proposed an additional task: we’d both have to make our respective versions of Life After Death reach as wide an audience as possible, which meant that not only did we need to chop and screw the album, we also got to play executive producer and decide what singles were going to be released and in which order. I didn’t want this one to turn into a simple “let’s cut all the interludes” exercise – I wanted this one to hurt a little (because, otherwise, where’s the challenge, right?)

I had originally insisted on a limit of only twelve songs for our revisions, based on the number of tracks that appear on each disc of Life After Death (not including that hidden lengthy interview at the end of the first disc on the second pressing of the album, which I had originally considered to be a part of my effort before thinking better of it), but Lord AAA quickly found a way around that restriction, and I applaud him for that. Let’s just bring him in to talk about it:

“So now that the discussions of trimming Life After Death down to a single album have exhausted the entire hip hop spectrum for over two decades, why don't I throw my hat in the ring?

“Anyone who's familiar with me knows that I have a guttural disdain for the assclown known as Sean John Combs. And with the passing of Craig Mack and, more recently, Black Rob, two former Bad Boy artists who were far from financially, medically, or mentally sound, that hatred has only intensified. Those two (and their families) should have been set for life, regardless of how 'difficult' the business relationships with them allegedly were.

“As such, I have reached the realization that I can do his job better than him. What better starting point than with what many consider to be his most noteworthy contribution to the genre: The Notorious B.I.G.’s Life After Death?

“Make no mistake about it: during the Life After Death recording sessions, the late, great Christopher Wallace became a household name. Any album that followed Ready to Die needed to be a statement, one proving he could maintain his mainstream appeal without compromising his street vision. The thing is, I sincerely believe that feat could have been achieved without all the debauchery found on the album, which is why, in my version, I have removed as many of the pretentious songs "for da ladeez" as possible. I’ve never felt that Big ever needed ‘Big Poppa’ or ‘One More Chance’ to reach superstardom, especially since the performance that actually ended up launching him into the stratosphere was his cameo on Craig Mack’s ‘Flava In Ya Ear’ remix. Go ahead. Tell me I'm wrong.

“In any case, I concede that a certain amount of flexing the success he had accumulated since Ready to Die needed to be represented here, which is why I included both of Easy Mo Bee's productions in my list, as I feel they both showcase Big at a level of flossing that's still intelligent enough to cater to any audience, especially ‘I Love The Dough’. And ‘Notorious Thugs’ is just a no-brainer. That song was already everywhere WITHOUT it ever being released as a true single.

“So yeah, enjoy, my fellow lonely soul. And as always, shoutouts to Max for the inspiration.”

LORD AAA'S LIFE AFTER DEATH:
1. Sky's the Limit (featuring 112)
2. Kick In The Door
3. Ten Crack Commandments
4. Miss U (featuring 112)
5. Going Back To Cali
6. Long Kiss Goodnight
7. You're Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You)
8. N----s Bleed
9. My Downfall (featuring D.M.C)
10. I Love The Dough (featuring Jay-Z and Angela Winbush)
11. Notorious Thugs (featuring Bone Thugs-N-Harmony)
12. Last Day (featuring The LOX)
Bonus track: Somebody's Gotta Die

The singles (EDITED 5.26.2021 - Now including additional commentary from Lord AAA):

1. “Sky's The Limit”
“This is what ‘Juicy’ wishes it could be. The only reason this single wasn’t more successful (when it was released after ‘Hypnotize’ and ‘Mo Money Mo Problems’ in our actual timeline) is because Puffy's bitch ass didn't push it as much as the others. Hell, he pushed ‘Nasty Boy’ more than this. I truly believe that it's the song that best encapsulates the elevation Life After Death was going for.”

2. “I Love The Dough” b/w "Going Back To Cali"
“Because of COURSE Puff was gonna pull a flossy record outta Big, even if he didn't want to record one. Wouldn't this have landed better than ‘Mo Money Mo Problems’? Wouldn't the masses have preferred the wittier Jay-Z as the promoted sparring partner over Ma$e? Easy Mo Bee was highly proficient at providing single-worthy backdrops, and this one is no different. Finally, I will ALWAYS prefer hearing Angela Winbush singing over Puffy's ego driven ‘bars’. Straight up.

"Not only is it cool that Easy Mo Bee gets a suite all to himself on this single, this placement would enforce the sentiment the late, great B.I.G. was going for on the song itself: he never had a problem with all of the West, just a certain confused loudmouth."

3. “Notorious Thugs” b/w "Kick In The Door" and "Long Kiss Goodnight"
“This song is, by no small margin, the BIGGEST statement of the entirety of Life After Death. Bone Thugs-N-Harmony were a HUGE act in 1997, and Big going toe-to-toe with them on this Stevie J-produced masterpiece was as loud a claim of hip hop dominance as one could have delivered in his shoes. Plus, its stadium appeal is impossible to deny – this song is a mainstay in Bone's concert setlist for a REASON.

"Given the fact that the original third single, 'Sky’s The Limit', was a triple A-Side, as well as the unmistakable certainty that 'Notorious Thugs' would’ve been the album’s biggest single (try to remember 1997, boy/girl… Bone Thugs were EVERYWHERE), it only makes sense that these two clapbacks to B.I.G’s foes would be included. Hell, 'Kick In The Door' was already included with the actual third single. Just thinking of the street buzz this could’ve generated is getting me pissed at Sean Combs all over again."



The flip side of that coin is my own take on Life After Death, where the confines of my own rules caused me to use much more red ink than I had anticipated, reducing two discs down to ten motherfucking songs. (I think some of the cuts may have done as a middle finger to myself, somehow.) Here's a peek at my thought process here:

(1) I didn’t need my Life After Death to be overloaded with guests. Ready to Die famously only had the one (Method Man), so losing many of the cameos would help shift the spotlight back to the star attraction. Doing so meant eliminating the vast majority of Bad Boy Records labelmates that popped up on the proper album, along with a handful of outside contractors pulled in to help broaden Biggie’s base. Sorry, Jadakiss and Too $hort.
(2) I thought nearly every single goddamned skit on Life After Death was unnecessary (yeah, even the Madd Rapper interlude), so I chopped them as much as I could. I mean, if they were a part of the audio track they’re going to pop up here, since this is a Spotify thing and not a mixtape I edited myself (which Mixcloud would immediately take down anyway, but I digress), but your challenge is to pretend most of them don’t exist. (I eliminated the Madd Rapper concern by pulling “Kick In The Door” from a different source, but that wasn’t an option for most of these tracks. The intro to “Sky’s The Limit” is allowed to stay, however.)
(3) In an effort to build the best, but, confusingly, most comprehensive version of the album, I allowed for Lord AAA and myself to pull from the various remixes released of Life After Death tracks. Unsurprisingly, neither of us took the bait (because what was there, the “Nasty Boy” remix? The clean version of “Fuck You Tonight”?), but we could have, which shows growth on my part.

With these ten tracks, I believe I’ve compiled the most cohesive version of The Notorious B.I.G.’s Life After Death, a worthy follow-up to Ready to Die which both stabilizes and expands upon the man’s growing fame, touching listeners in various parts of the world through a combination of wit and introspection combined with radio-and club-friendly bops and some straight-up gutter shit. I think you two will agree, although you may be shocked at some of the cuts. I can be ruthless when I need to be.

MAX'S LIFE AFTER DEATH:
1. My Downfall (featuring D.M.C.)
2. Ten Crack Commandments
3. Long Kiss Goodnight
4. Going Back To Cali
5. Hypnotize
6. I Love The Dough (featuring Jay-Z and Angela Winbush)
7. Kick In The Door
8. I Got A Story To Tell
9. You're Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You)
10. Sky's the Limit (featuring 112)

The (Twelve-Inch) Singles:

1. “Sky’s The Limit” b/w “Ten Crack Commandments”
I agree with Lord AAA that “Sky’s The Limit” is essentially a more focused version of Ready to Die’s “Juicy”, both songs featuring Biggie Smalls describing aspects of his upbringing, with his mother doing a lot with what little money she had, and how our host’s dreams of a better life came into fruition. More so than actual first single “Hypnotize”, “Sky’s The Limit” could have potentially secured a wide audience at radio and on MTV (thanks to the Spike Jonze-directed video, which would have generated a shit-ton of social media engagements had Twitter existed back in 1997) thanks to Biggie’s conversational flow and the melodic instrumental (provided by Clark Kent and Biggie himself!). Your parents wouldn’t have switched the channel if “Sky’s The Limit” came on, which definitely couldn’t be said about “Ten Crack Commandments”, which in my parallel universe is the “street” single designed to draw in the hip hop heads who wanted more boasts-n-bullshit from Christopher Wallace. It’s the perfect street single, custom-built for mixtapes – it’s a single verse over a boom bap beat featuring Biggie talking mad shit about moving weight, and it could have even given Puffy and Bad Boy an excuse to slap producer DJ Premier’s name across the cover art, which would have made this an instant purchase for many back then.

2. “Hypnotize” b/w non-album track “Notorious Thugs”
Over in the real world, “Hypnotize” was a good choice as a single, its theatrical music video effectively reintroducing The Notorious B.I.G. to BET and MTV audiences as the song’s D-Dot and Amen-Ra instrumental banged in the clubs and even on radio stations to this day. That kind of impact isn’t something that can be easily ignored, so I’d throw the song a bone by releasing it as the second single from my Life After Death. At this point in the album rollout, it would be smart to push the project’s poppier tracks, as all of the hip hop heads who were waiting for Biggie to release something new will have already picked this one up – “Hypnotize” is for the stragglers who maybe weren’t that familiar with The Notorious B.I.G., or maybe they knew of “Big Poppa” but didn’t want to commit until they heard the man flex and bust on the radio with lyrics that are as violent and hedonistic as he’d ever been. (The man kidnaps a judge’s daughter and threatens to murder her if he doesn’t secure a “not guilty” verdict – there just aren’t many pop songs that can pull that off.) Sticking with the pop theme, as Lord AAA noted above Bone Thugs-N-Harmony were still a very popular act, and as a way to broaden Biggie’s base while capitalizing off of the fame of the Cleveland quartet or quintet (depending on which period of time you’re discussing them within), “Notorious Thugs”, which I left off of Life After Death, would begin making the rounds as a non-album B-side. And let’s be very clear: this motherfucker would make the rounds. The curiosity factor alone (“Wait, Biggie can rhyme quickly? Now this I gotta hear!”) would propel this one up the charts, so the song I cut from the tracklist because it didn’t fit on the proper project (no, really, it doesn’t fit at all, not even today) would gain a second life as a loosey that Puffy would, admittedly, then affix onto future pressings of Life After Death as a bonus track, thereby driving up sales even further.



I want you both to give the two alternate-universe Life After Deaths a spin, and let us know in the comments whose version you prefer, or if you believe the original two-disc effort is perfect the way it is. Feel free to share these revisions with everyone you know on social media, as well: Lord AAA's Twitter handle is (at) lord3aaa and his Instagram is found (at) NarrativeFanatic, while my Twitter is still (at) hhid_Max, where you can argue with me if you wish.

Enjoy! And let the fact that Lord AAA pitched this idea to me inspire you – should you have a project in mind for future entries in this series, let me know! It doesn't have to be limited to just double albums, mind you.

-Max

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