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. 

Bonus Post #8

Okay, I lied, I have one.

Remixed For Your Pleasure: The Notorious B.I.G. - "Big Poppa"

(If you haven't already done so, be sure to visit my previous post and throw your shuffled playlist in the comments section.)

Odds are pretty good that if you regularly read this blog, you're at least somewhat familiar with "Big Poppa".  The second single from The Notorious B.I.G.'s debut album, Ready To Die, "Big Poppa" was a track aimed squarely at the ladies in the place that Biggie wanted nothing more than to bone down with after splitting a T-bone steak and downing some Welch's grape juice.  Producers Sean "Puffy" Combs and Chucky Thompson sampled The Isley Brothers' jam "Between The Sheets" expertly, redefining the instrumental loop for a new generation who would primarily connect it with Biggie's club exploits.  Even with the late Christopher Wallace reciting general concepts of come-ons as though he were an alien from another universe tasked with studying the female half of our species in their natural habitat ("..ask you what your interests are, who you be with / Things that make you smile, what numbers to dial"), and an extended guest vocal from Puff Daddy oozing sleaze by encouraging an anonymous female to gather her friends for some group sex in a nearby hotel room, ostensibly while Biggie is eating his T-bone steak, "Big Poppa" became the second huge hit from Ready To Die, earning considerable radio airplay, MTV spins, and essentially making Puffy look like a goddamn genius for signing Biggie in the first place.  Never mind the fact that Biggie still had yet to release an actual "street" single from the project at this point: Puffy was basically trying to cover all of his costs incurred for recording the project before letting his boy run wild.

Which is why it's kind of weird that Puffy had fuck-all to do with the song's official remix.

The official "Big Poppa" re-do was produced by Jermaine Dupri, whose presence isn't surprising: Dupri was once one of the biggest producers in our chosen genre, whether you like to remember that part of the timeline or not, and aside from that, he had already cultivated a working relationship with Wallace after working with him on Da Brat's Biggie-featured "Da B Side".  The instrumental aims for a different facet of pop radio, dropping the Isley Brothers sample in favor of the sound of late-1980's R&B, which isn't as iconic, but makes the song different enough to warrant its existence.  

Dupri's new instrumental apparently inspired Biggie to go back to the lab, as the remix contains some different bars randomly tossed in, so as to create more backstory for a tale that really didn't need one, leading to a completely new third verse that no longer features Puffy's lecherous ways.  Of course, Dupri takes his place, which is just as goofy, but your mileage may vary: I found myself actually missing Puff's vocals.  Both versions have their specific niches on radio flashback shows, and they both prove that, while he wasn't quite fond of doing them at first, The Notorious B.I.G. was actually pretty good at putting together radio-friendly tracks that broadened his overall appeal.  Still, I'm sure most of the two readers prefer that street shit from Biggie Smalls, of which there is plenty, but that doesn't take away from "Big Poppa".

I can't end this post without giving everyone the actual video for "Big Poppa, so I'll get that out of the way right...now.

GO WITH THE O.G. OR THE REMIX?  The original by a long shot.  The remix is only for curious heads who want to hear some new-ish bars from the late Christopher Wallace.  However, the single for the remix was the first place one could get a copy of the much-lauded B-side "Who Shot Ya?", so.

-Max

RELATED POST:

The Notorious B.I.G. - Ready To Die (review)

"Remixed" For Your Pleasure: The Notorious B.I.G. - "Juicy"

"Juicy" is a song that requires no introduction, but I have to write one anyway, or else the terrorists win.  The first single released from his debut album, Ready To Die, "Juicy" was essentially the mainstream's introduction to Brooklyn's own The Notorious B.I.G., a smooth shit-talker whose rhymes reflected the hardships he had faced at his young age, the community he grew up in, and the sense of humor he was pretty much forced to adopt in order to tolerate his surroundings.  That may sound overly dramatic, but as the biopic Notorious taught me, patriotism has its limitations.  I've also just realized that I may have watched the wrong version of Notorious, but I'm rolling with it.

"Juicy" wasn't Biggie's first solo single (that would have been "Party and Bullshit", from the Who's The Man? soundtrack, where he was credited as just B.I.G.), but it was his first for the newly-minted Bad Boy Records, Sean "Puffy" Combs's vanity label who would go on to build its entire aesthetic around the duality of radio-friendly rap and R&B songs from the streets, a description that didn't even really make fucking sense until Puff Daddy managed to grasp onto hip hop with his grubby, money-hungry hands.  Anyway, "Juicy" was a hit, much to Biggie's surprise, as he reportedly didn't like the song all that much, wanting the album track "Machine Gun Funk" to be the opening salvo from Ready To Die.  Although I like "Machine Gun Funk", can you imagine how many sales Biggie would have gained if Puffy allowed that to happen?  Zero.  Can one even count negative sales?  It was a terrible idea, and at least Puffy was smart enough to realize that his young charge needed to get regular radio and video airplay before he could bring out that gutter shit.

"Juicy" has been slapped with mild controversy on the Interweb and with hip hop heads of a certain age, however, because of what's featured in the next clip.

Mount Vernon producer extraordinaire Pete Rock was sitting at home, fucking around with a sample he lifted from Mtume's "Juicy Fruit".  He had some people over at his house, and everyone was having drinks, shooting the shit, enjoying themselves, while music pumped out of the basement, which was a frequent occurrence in Peter Q. Rockefeller's home, since he's a music producer who likes music.  His beat (whether or not it was complete is a valid question), featuring the "Juicy Fruit" sample, played in the background, and it caught Puff Daddy's ear, which proved to be a bit of a problem, as Puffy immediately went to the studio and, with the assistance of Poke (of the production duo Trackmasters, who hadn't yet formed), ripped off Pete's idea for the instrumental, "Juicy Fruit" sample and all.  The end result was the radio-friendly platinum single "Juicy" which we're all familiar with, but as if he were throwing him a bone, Puffy commissioned Pete Rock to "remix" the track, which basically meant that Pete Rock laid Biggie's vocals over the beat he had already completed.

So this marks the first time in this series where the "remix" is actually the original version of the song.  Sort of.  All Puffy heard was the beat: Pete didn't have Biggie spit over it directly (yet), so all he jacked was the source material.  Pete Rock received no writing credit for being Puffy's muse, something that still nags at him to this day, although he doesn't carry any ill will for either Biggie (who had fuck-all to do with this) or Puff, and besides, it's not like many hip hop heads actually think Puffy's a better producer than Pete "Horns!" Rock, anyway.

The result is a "remix" that isn't nearly as widely known as the "original", which is a goddamn shame.  While the album track is perfectly entertaining radio-friendly ear candy, Pete Rock lays the exact same sample underneath some hard drums and avoids all of the flourishes Puffy preferred, all in favor of creating a slice of boom-bap that, had Biggie recorded this version officially, he may not have been as upset about that whole "debut single" thing.  It's unfortunate that Pete's treat was relegated to a b-side, and that apparently only a clean radio edit exists: it's not like Biggie cursed incessantly over the original "Juicy", but I'm still not a big fan of censorship.  Pete also avoids the "Horns!" that I keep attributing to his production style, instead looping the sample and letting its melody serve the track, as opposed to Puff Daddy, who added in all sorts of audio trickery.  In fact, if you're not familiar with Pete Rock's "remix", after listening to it above, you might find Puff and Poke's take to be overproduced and far too glossy for the rough-and-tumble Notorious B.I.G. (R.I.P.).  Which is something he had to deal with every day he was signed to Bad Boy, but that's a story for another series.

I've also included the official video just because, well, it's "Juicy", damn it.

GO WITH THE "O.G." OR THE "REMIX"?  They're both good, but I prefer the Pete Rock "remix", not just because of Puffy's questionable ethics, but simply because it sounds better to me. 

-Max

RELATED POST:

The Notorious B.I.G. - Ready To Die (review)

The Notorious B.I.G. - Duets: The Final Chapter (December 2, 2005)

In 2005, Sean "Puffy" Combs convinced the other executives at his record label, Bad Boy Records, that releasing a second posthumous Biggie Smalls album, one padded with guest appearances, newfangled production techniques, and recycled verses, would somehow make them some extra Christmas spending cash. What started as a heated board meeting quickly turned into a wrestling match, with Harve "Joe Hooker" Pierre knocked unconscious and rapper G-Dep forced to hold the chair that Puff Daddy had broken over the man's head. Then, everybody in the room decided an impromptu vacation was in order, and they were next seen a few hours later, knocking back drinks at the Gallagher's inside the New York New York in Las Vegas. (All I can say is, that pizza place right outside of Gallagher's is fucking amazing.) And, somehow, Duets: The Final Chapter was born.

Obviously, The Notorious B.I.G. had been dead for several years at this point, and unlike his afterlife golf buddy Tupac Shakur, Biggie didn't have several closets full of unreleased material. His first posthumous disc, Born Again, pretty much used up most of his rare verses, setting them against ineffective instrumentals and alongside guests that Biggie never got a chance to work with in his lifetime, such as Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, and, um, Lil' Wayne. So Puffy had the bright idea of taking some of his older songs (the ones that people actually liked) and, pulling one verse from hither and another from dither, created Frankensongs from the ether, coercing established artists (and employees at his label) to provide guest spots at very nominal fees, lest those blackmail photographs of Jay-Z, T.I., and Eminem at the last Republican National Convention leak to the liberal press.

Duets: The Final Chapter was marketed as the final "tribute" album to Biggie Smalls, news which caused the general public to collectively wipe the sweat from their brows. It sold moderately well (although its first week sales were eclipsed by those of Jamie Foxx and a Teletubbies exercise video), but was trashed in the press. I also don't know anybody who both (a) loves and appreciates music and (b) owns this stupid fucking album.

Except for...

1. B.I.G. LIVE IN JAMAICA (INTRO)
I actually shouted at my computer, telling this intro to hurry the fuck up and introduce Biggie already. That's how annoying this shit is. Which is never a good sign.

2. IT HAS BEEN SAID (FEAT EMINEM, OBIE TRICE, & DIDDY)
Kind of ironic that Eminem would trash-talk those who piggyback off of 2Pac and Biggie's respective legacies. Two of the main offenders, Sean Combs and Marshall himself, appear on this very track. Coincidence? This also isn't much of a “duet”, as Biggie only provides ad libs from either the grave or from an entirely different song, making this a boring-ass tribute song. Obie, Eminem's former employee, at least tries to display some sort of authentic feeling, even though the chances that Biggie would have worked with him in real life are pretty fucking slim (no pun intended).

3. SPIT YOUR GAME (FEAT TWISTA & KRAYZIE BONE)
The original “Notorious Thugs”, featuring Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, didn't deserve to be raped and pillaged to this degree. Swizz Beats should be dragged out into the street and beaten in front of his mother for creating this bullshit. Twista's verse would have sounded better if it were included on a different project altogether, and although Krayzie Bone, who appeared on the original, was game enough to cash a check for this track, this song is so frustrating that it will make you want to slit the throat and wrists of hip hop. True fact. (Apparently there's also a remix to this godawful track that tacks on then-new Bad Boy Records labelmates Eightball & MJG at the end, and they didn't get the speed-rap memo, as they spit in the same Southern drawl that won them fans, earning them a shitload of criticism. Not from me, though: I don't give enough of a fuck to locate that version of the song.)

4. WHATCHU WANT (FEAT JAY-Z)
Contains some Biggie verses that only diehards would be familiar with, so that's a plus. Danja, a producer who's been programming Timbaland's beats for the past few years, creates an instrumental that actually works for today's audience. The song falls the fuck apart once Shawn Carter takes to the mic, though, which is strange, since Jay-Z actually worked alongside Biggie many times throughout his career. Maybe he hadn't yet gotten his groove back. (You see, just because I'm a Jay-Z stan doesn't mean the guy gets a free pass.)

5. GET YOUR GRIND ON (FEAT BIG PUNISHER, FREEWAY, & FAT JOE)
All kinds of morbid, as Biggie had already passed when Pun hit it big. So all this track is missing is cameos from 2Pac, Freaky Tah, Big L, Eazy-E, and every other dead rapper ever. I was buying this remake of “You're Nobody (Till Somebody Kills You)” until Freeway's chorus screeched in my ears, summoning up evil spirits outside of my house, and now I'm afraid to leave. And I have to buy fucking groceries, Beardy! How fucking inconsiderate!

6. LIVING THE LIFE (FEAT FAITH EVANS, CHERI DENIS, BOBBY VALENTINO, LUDACRIS, & SNOOP DOGG)
Chris Bridges actually sounds the most comfortable of all of the rappers who have appeared so far on this project, and I'm including The Notorious B.I.G. himself in that assessment: since he's clearly spinning in his grave as we speak, I fear his arm may have gotten caught on a stray nail.

7. THE GREATEST RAPPER (INTERLUDE)
Biggie's son, Christopher Wallace Jr., briefly reflects on his father being the greatest rapper ever. He obviously isn't familiar with some of the other players in this here hip hop game. And yes, I realize that the last sentence makes me come off as a dick.

8. 1970 SOMETHIN' (FEAT THE GAME & FAITH EVANS)
The existence of this song means that The Game only has one more deceased artist to record a song “alongside” before he earns a free five dollar footlong.

9. NASTY GIRL (FEAT DIDDY, NELLY, JAGGED EDGE, & AVERY STORM)
The original “Nasty Boy” (from Life After Death) was cheesy fun, but this remake strips away all of the elements that made the otherwise embarrassing predecessor work, rendering it, well, simply embarrassing. And this was released as a single why? Next!

10. LIVING IN PAIN (FEAT 2PAC, NAS, & MARY J. BLIGE)
Yeah...pretty sure Pac wouldn't have signed off on this if the Bad Boy lawyers were somehow able to locate him in the Bahamas. This is a remake of a song that the two hip hop giants actually performed together, so it's slightly intriguing, but that's all. And Nas had issues with both Biggie and 2Pac: who the fuck let him into the building?

11. I'M WITH WHATEVA (FEAT JUELZ SANTANA, LIL' WAYNE, & JIM JONES)
You see that guest list? I was predestined to hate this song, and in that respect, it does not disappoint. However, I will concede that Weezy's line “if you don't love yourself, I'll show you your heart” was kind of interesting. But yeah, this song is useless, and Biggie doesn't appear on here, either: I don't even remember hearing a single ad lib. Even from beyond the grave, Biggie apparently has taste.

12. BEEF (FEAT MOBB DEEP)
While it's touching that Prodigy (inadvertently) offers to take a bullet for the star attraction, this remake of “What's Beef” is entirely unnecessary. Go listen to the original (from Life After Death) instead.

13. MY DAD (INTERLUDE)
Biggie's daughter T-yana also gets a chance to speak.

14. HUSTLER'S STORY (FEAT AKON, SCARFACE, & BIG GEE)
Credit where credit is due: the beat sounds like something that Biggie would have actually spit to, so kudos. (Not sure why it took four goddamn people to come up with it, though.) His verse (from "You'll See, a mixtape track also featuring The Lox) even has an effortless way about it. But once Akon starts singing and Big Gee from Bad Boy weed carriers Boyz N Da Hood (really, Puffy? A guy with that name? From your own marketing department? What the fuck?) begins to make me want to give up writing a hip hop blog and take up underwater basket weaving instead, this Titanic hits a fucking iceberg, and the band plays on. Scarface manages to right the ship, but it's too late: Leo has already drowned.

15. BREAKIN' OLD HABITS (FEAT T.I. & SLIM THUG)
Would Biggie have rhymed alongside the likes of Slim Thug and T.I. If he were still alive? In the case of T.I., probably, since that guy has, like, eighty songs on the radio right now. But I'd like to believe that he would have flat out refused to spit to a garbage beat such as the one presented here.

16. ULTIMATE RUSH (FEAT MISSY ELIOTT)
Missy compares her loving to the sensation of “eating pussy with some pork in it”. That will be more than enough reason for most readers to skip to the next song, but for the masochists out there: the song somehow manages to get even worse.

17. MI CASA (FEAT R. KELLY & CHARLIE WILSON)
Meh.

18. LITTLE HOMIE (INTERLUDE)
If all of you motherfuckers respect Biggie's legacy so goddamn much, then why would you allow Puff Daddy to dismiss his work with such reckless abandon? Huh?

19. HOLD YOUR HEAD (FEAT BOB MARLEY)
One of my most favoritest Biggie tracks ever is “Suicidal Thoughts”. That one-verse wonder is chopped the fuck up in order to insert a Bob Marley vocal sample throughout, which serves as the hook. Also entirely unnecessary, but at least the idea of a “duet” between Biggie and Bob Marley is kind of interesting. If Duets: The Final Chapter did more of this kind of thing, this album could have worked. For those of you two that are interested in that sort of thing, there's the Blue Eyes Meets Bed-Stuy mixtape which pairs up Biggie verses with Frank Sinatra songs: that mixtape is readily available on the Interweb.

20. JUST A MEMORY (FEAT CLIPSE)
Unless they're jacking more well-known beats, I'm not a fan of hearing the Clipse perform over non-Neptunes beats. Sadly, the brothers Thornton sound as if they would have fit perfectly with the Notorious one, had he lived. Sigh.

21. WAKE UP NOW (FEAT KORN)
The Notorious B.I.G. And Korn? Was Korn even popular when Duets: The Final Chapter was released? With this, Puffy has officially sullied the name of Biggie Smalls. (I suppose it could have been worse, though: it could have been Limp Bizkit. But this bullshit still stinks.)

22. LOVE IS EVERLASTING (OUTRO)
Biggie's mother, who also handled outro duties on Born Again, ends Duets: The Final Chapter on a high note. As well as anyone possibly could, anyway.

There are also a couple of bonus tracks that were found on a version of Duets: The Final Chapter that was sold at Target, but I don't have that version of the album. One of the two tracks featured Ja Rule, though, so I won't be going out of my way to listen to it. If you've had the honor of hearing them, leave your notes about them below.

FINAL THOUGHTS: I'll just say it right now: Duets: The Final Chapter is fucking horrible. It's concrete proof that Puff Daddy doesn't have the capacity to leave well enough alone. The beat selection is almost uniformly terrible, the guests involved seem generally confused as to whether they're supposed to pay homage to Biggie or actively pretend that they're recording a song with the man, and the mixing and matching of Biggie's verses actually creates even less coherence than Born Again contained. One of the biggest criticisms of Born Again was that Puffy filled the disc with guest spots from artists whom Biggie would never have worked with in his lifetime, and on Duets: The Final Chapter, he hasn't learned his lesson, as the cameos are even more questionable, especially the ones from within the Bad Boy roster. I hope that karma comes back and kicks the shit out of Sean Combs for making it very difficult to revisit Biggie's two actual albums without my memories of this garbage.

BUY OR BURN? The fuck do you think?

BEST TRACKS: None. But you saw that coming.

-Max

RELATED POSTS:
More write-ups on The Notorious B.I.G. Can be found here.

The Notorious B.I.G. - Born Again (December 7, 1999)

In honor (I say that cautiously, as I have not yet seen it) of the release of Notorious, the Biggie Smalls biopic that hits theaters today, I present Christopher Wallace's first posthumous album, Born Again.

The title of the album follows the natural cycle presented on Biggie's first two discs, Ready To Die and Life After Death. In fact, if I remember correctly, Biggie spoke of calling his third release Born Again prior to his untimely death on March 9, 1997, from injuries sustained in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles, one which remains unsolved to this very day.

However, the title may be the only input that The Notorious B.I.G. has on this project. Since he was dead and all, he wasn't available to contribute any new verses, so his friend/mentor/boss Sean "Puffy" Combs was charged with compiling an album that could simultaneously pay homage to the man and possibly be perceived as a valid third album. Naturally, this meant grabbing as many "unreleased" (read: swiped from mixtapes) Biggie bars as possible, and fitting them onto recently-completed instrumentals like a jigsaw puzzle, and then calling upon the hot rappers of the moment (or, when that failed, pulling rank on the Bad Boy Records roster) to fill in the blanks.

Consequently, Born Again is primarily made up of song amalgamations that aren't necessarily natural. To his credit, though, Puff Daddy seems to have chosen artists to contribute that, at the very least, Biggie might have listened to in his lifetime, unlike the deviant mutations of tracks that appear on his other posthumous disc, Duets: The Final Chapter, but we'll get to that when we get to that.

For an album that was talked up in the hip hop press for about a full year prior to its release, Born Again is as notable for its exclusions as it is for what ended up on the final product. A remix of an early Biggie hit, "Party & Bullshit" (which appeared on the Who's The Man? soundtrack before Biggie was even signed to a label: his name even appears on the disc as 'Big'), featuring Will Smith and Biggie's widow Faith Evans, and featuring production from DJ Premier, was mentioned so often that I'm convinced that it's sitting in the Bad Boy vaults, fully mastered, simply collecting dust, and yet, it's not here. I suppose it would have been too obvious for Puffy to include some of Biggie's actual unreleased songs on Born Again, apparently, so only one remnant of the Ready To Die studio sessions, "Come On", makes an appearance. (Other tracks, featuring artists as diverse as Nerf Herder, The Lox, Killah Priest, Lauryn Hill, and Sufjan Stevens, also ended up missing from the final cut.) Probably the biggest name missing from the project is Shawn Carter, who publicly stated that he didn't participate because, unlike most of the artists on Born Again, he actually did record songs with Biggie Smalls and didn't feel that it would be appropriate. (And yet Jay-Z had no such qualms when Duets: The FInal Chapter was conceived. Hmm.....)

Born Again sold tons of copies and helped cement Christopher Wallace's place in hip hop's eventual hall of fame, which will either be located in New York somewhere, or possibly in Scandinavia, where the music from the South doesn't get much play. However, it was met with much critical derision, and the public perception of the disc was a cartoonish image of Puff Daddy riding his deceased friend's coattails all the way to the motherfucking bank. As such, most Biggie fans don't even bother including this disc in their hero's official catalog.

But was this backlash deserved?

Probably. Here's why:

1. BORN AGAIN (INTRO)
Kind of incredibly polarizing. You'll walk away from this rap album intro either depressed that Biggie was ultimately correct about his early death, or you'll be pissed off that Puffy and company included this shit as a wholly manufactured way to tug at your heartstrings. The dumbass chanting at the end (lyrics swiped from "Dead Wrong") also makes zero sense in this context, and seem to have been included as an inside joke being played on the listeners. We get it: the man's dead. I can read the newspaper too, jackass. This is one of the most useless rap album intros I have heard in a long while.

2. NOTORIOUS B.I.G. (FEAT PUFF DADDY & LIL' KIM)
I never cared for this song. You can almost see Puffy break out the shiny suit over Prestige's radio-friendly endeavor, and that is never a good thing. (For one, they burn the corneas and cause much distracti...oooh, look, shiny object!) I'm sure it doesn't help that the Duran Duran sample (from, duh, "Notorious") constantly reminds me today of the children dancing in fucking Donnie Darko. And wasn't this song once simply referred to as "Notorious"? What the fuck happened?

3. DEAD WRONG (REMIX) (FEAT EMINEM)
Probably the most vile song on all of Born Again, but I mean that in the best possible way. Biggie's demented lyrics (taken from multiple sources and not, in fact, from an unreleased song entitled "Dead Wrong", as I mistakenly believed) are aided and abetted by an after-the-fact beat from multiple members of Puff Daddy's Hitmen production squad. Since Biggie actually comes off as someone you would not want to fuck with, I have to give kudos. Marshall's tacked-on verse at the end is unnecessary (as was his cameo in this track's video), but still mildly amusing: this was during Slim Shady's career apex, so it's actually pretty entertaining. True fans should probably track down the original version of this track online, sans Eminem, so that you can hear what it sounded like prior to label interference (read: Puff Daddy).

4. HOPE YOU N----S SLEEP (FEAT HOT BOYS, & BIG TYMERS)
When Born Again was released, this song caught a lot of flak: would Biggie have actually worked with Cash Money artists if he were still around. Looking back, the answer is a wholehearted "You bet your fucking ass he would", especially when it comes to Lil' Wayne, hip hop's flavor of the month, who bats cleanup on here as part of the Hot Boys. The Mannie Fresh instrumental is alright (believe it or not, I always kind of liked his beats; I was just never impressed with the artists he chose to work with), and, in a sentence I never thought I would see on my blog, I found Juvenile's verse to actually be really good, and B.G.'s wasn't entirely without merit. Aaah, lowered expectations! Biggie's vocals sound awkwardly laid in by the engineers, though, as if they did it while wearing earplugs, a blindfold, and six broken condoms. (See, not all of these comments make sense.)

5. DANGEROUS M.C.'S (FEAT BUSTA RHYMES, MARK CURRY, & SNOOP DOGG)
This patchwork quilt of a song is only notable because, apparently, there was something wrong with the audio on Biggie's original recording: we actually lose his voice for almost two bars, so Busta Rhymes steps in to help us out. Otherwise, this song is boring as fuck, and Busta's hook is almost as stupid as the one that Ron Browz contributes to his own "Arab Money". Okay, I'm exaggerating: nothing could be dumber than the hook on "Arab Money". Snoop's appearance on here brings with it more questions than necessary, the primary one being: Why? And I'm almost nineteen percent sure that it isn't the same Mark Curry that had his own show, Hangin' With Mr. Cooper, on ABC for five seasons. (It was on for that long? Seriously?)

6. BIGGIE (FEAT JUNIOR M.A.F.I.A.)

Although Lil' Kim appears on this track, she doesn't get her own performer credit, as she was still technically a part of the Junior M.A.F.I.A. back in 1999. Anywho, save for the inclusion of an older vocal sample in the hook, Biggie Smalls doesn't actually appear on here at all. Instead, the Junior M.A.F.I.A. take the opportunity to rhyme about their mentor, although everyone involved take major detours during their verses, derailing the sympathy. Also, while Kim doesn't sound horrible (indeed, she is actually the best rapper out of the group, although that's possibly because she was fucking her mentor), she's already appeared on Born Again too many times, and this is only her second appearance.

7. N----S
For obvious reasons, this is the only song on Born Again that doesn't feature any guest assistance from anybody. When Curtis Jackson was set to release his Get Rich Or Die Tryin', a mixtape-only track was released (with this same title) that fit Biggie's lyrics from here onto a much better beat (one I believe was provided by DJ Green Lantern, but I could be wrong). Not that Puffy did a completely awful job with the instrumental, but if I wanted to hear music that sounds like the opening theme to a 1970s cop show, I would turn on my television.

8. BIG BOOTY HOES (FEAT TOO $HORT)
Ahhh, nothing like a misogynistic sex rap to help pay your respects to a deceased artist. (Remember all of those vulgar anal sex jokes after Ray Charles passed away? Or the vivid discussion of autoerotic asphyxiation on Mozart's farewell album?) I have to admit that I laughed out loud when Biggie exclaimed how he likes his women "educated, so [he] can bust off on their glasses", and that makes me feel a bit guilty, but not by much, as we've all seen much worse in mainstream porn. (If you haven't, you should open up a new browser window and look that up while finishing the review.) Too $hort sounds pretty bored as fuck on here, as if even he realized that he's said all of this shit before.

9. WOULD YOU DIE FOR ME? (FEAT PUFF DADDY & LIL' KIM)
Beat-wise, this comes off as a companion piece to Life After Death's "Nasty Boy". Hook-wise, it'll make you want to run a wire hanger through your ear canal to stab your brain to death. I would like to think that even Puffy would be aware that the chorus could have been better served if it were performed by a couple of fucking hyenas (literally, two hyenas fucking) in front of a classroom of tone-deaf fourth graders. Also, why the fuck is Kim on here again? (That's a rhetorical question, you two, so please don't leave your theories in the comments.)

10. COME ON (FEAT SADAT X)
Somewhere, someone is reading this and thinking, "Sadat X? What the fuck is he doing on Born Again? When was the last time Sadat sold millions of records?" Well, here's the deal, for those of you two that aren't aware: "Come On" was originally intended for Ready To Die, but was removed for reasons unknown to me (possibly sample clearance issues, but my theory is that Puffy felt Sadat X from Brand Nubian didn't really fit the demographic he was aiming for). This means, that, unlike every other fucking song on here, "Come On" is the only track which Biggie actually recorded with his guest, and it shows in the quality. This isn't bad at all: whatever happened to producer Clark Kent, anyway?

11. RAP PHENOMENON (FEAT REDMAN & METHOD MAN)
And then we're presented with this shit. Anybody remotely interested in hearing what Reggie Noble would sound like over a DJ Premier beat will find themselves severely disillusioned, as Primo falters on what is ultimately the most disappointing instrumental on all of Born Again. Seriously, Primo gave a much better beat to motherfucking Fred Durst. Red and Meth sound pretty boring, but, admittedly, Biggie's verses (swiped from his guest appearance on Tracey Lee's "Keep Your Hands High" - I was always a fan of his "The Theme (It's Party Time)", but the track featuring the guest of honor was of no consequence) sound pretty good. Still, this could have been so much more.

12. LET ME GET DOWN (FEAT CRAIG MACK, G-DEP, & MISSY ELLIOTT)
Is that really the best use of Craig Mack you could muster, Puffy? Come on, motherfucker! The man is partially responsible for Biggie's success for two reasons: (1) Craig Mack, Biggie's only labelmate in the early days of Bad Boy, was much less charismatic than The Notorious B.I.G, leaving listeners with no choice but to pick Biggie, and (2) Craig Mack's "Flava In Ya Ear (Remix)", which featured Biggie on the lead verse (and also included Busta Rhymes, Rampage, LL Cool J, and Puffy on the ad-libs) with a performance that cemented his place in hip hop while Craig Mack was forced to take a night job at Ruby Tuesday's. Oh, the song? It's not bad, but it's not very good, either.

13. TONIGHT (FEAT PUFF DADDY & MOBB DEEP)
An unnecessary remix of Life After Death's "Long Kiss Goodnight", now with one hundred and eighty percent more Puff Daddy shouting. Havoc sounds alright, but the surprise here is Prodigy, who, uncharacteristically, doesn't suck. This probably would have been a much better song had Havoc actually manned the boards, but I'll take what I can get. Hearing Joe Hooker on the, well, hook, makes me miss Black Rob's "I Dare You".

14. IF I SHOULD DIE BEFORE I WAKE (FEAT BLACK ROB, BEANIE SIGEL, & ICE CUBE)
This track is almost fucking avant-garde in its execution, with its awkward beat and a hook that shouldn't exist as a hook. (It doesn't help that the "hook" was converted to such a beast from some older Biggie lyrics that had to be censored due to content, hence the quantity of empty space.) I don't appreciate how Puffy seemed to select his chosen guests by utilizing the Randomizer on Def Jam: Icon: come on, Beanie Sigel and Ice Cube? Really? At least Sigel sounds good (and Black Rob comes off decently as well - I really should try to find his debut in my boxes), but considering that Biggie has approximately half a verse on here, this song is a waste of time.

15. WHO SHOT YA? (FEAT PUFF DADDY)
Biggie's classic "Big Poppa" b-side, a first-person monologue from the perspective of a kidnapper, finally sees a release on a "proper" album (please note the use of quotation marks). This song easily destroys any other track Born Again has the sack to offer up. And I say this even though Puffy takes the coward's way out and fades out the song just before Biggie takes out his frustration on his captive. (The full, uncensored version can be found online rather easily.)

16. CAN I GET WITCHA (FEAT LIL' CEASE)
Rap song number 1,873,472 extolling the virtues of the woman with the ample bottom. Raise your hand if you're disturbed at the idea of Biggie and Lil' Cease trading lines (relatively speaking) in the chorus about one of them wanting to get with the other because they have a big B-U-T-T. (I realize that's not what the chorus is actually going for, but it's pretty fucking close, and it's distracting enough to make you move to the next song.)

17. I REALLY WANT TO SHOW YOU (FEAT K-CI, JOJO & NAS)
So Biggie's "Everyday Struggle" is remixed into submission, to the point that you may need to use dental records to identify it. The inclusion of Nasir was supposed to be a big deal because Nas and Biggie weren't exactly close during his lifetime: yeah, Puff, having Nas appear on the disc after the star has already died is a surefire way to help them bury the hatchet.

18. MS. WALLACE (OUTRO) (FEAT VOLETTA WALLACE)
I found this to be a very touching and honest outro. Biggie's mother, Voletta Wallace, denounces her son's decision to become part of the music industry, all while acknowledging that his rhymes brought entertainment to more than a few people's ears, because she feels that rap music was directly related to her son's murder. I appreciate her candor, although it is ironically tacked on to the end of a rap album (and is faded out before she even finishes talking - goddamn it, I hate when people do that shit). However, the biggest problem with this outro is not its existence, unlike other albums. No, the beef I have with it is that it will probably never be heard by Biggie's fans, who will skip this shit right back to the beginning after realizing that this isn't a song. Sigh.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Born Again is an inferior album in the Biggie Smalls catalog. That's the opinion that essentially everyone on Earth has, so you two shouldn't be surprised by my conclusion, but the reason it fails is not because of the massive number of guests: it's because said guests fail to show even the smallest ounce of emotion regarding the passing of the star attraction. The most sincere comment comes from Biggie's mother, but she's talking about how she wishes her son never picked up the mic: that's not what hip hop fans want to hear. It's pretty obvious that Born Again was a cash-in for Puff Daddy, capitalizing on exploiting his friend, and I have a weird feeling that Notorious will give me that same feeling. Again, none of this is new information: it's just a new twist on popular opinion.

BUY OR BURN? Enough people already bought enough of this garbage to warrant it the number one slot on the Billboard charts the week of its release, but that doesn't mean you need to make the same mistake. You should avoid this album in much the same manner as I try to avoid anything remotely relating to The Hills (which is to say, like the fucking Black Plague).

BEST TRACKS: "Dead Wrong (Remix)"; "Who Shot Ya?"

-Max

RELATED POSTS:
Some more Notorious B.L.O.G.S. here (sorry, couldn't resist the bad pun).

The Notorious B.I.G. - Life After Death (March 25, 1997)

The Notorious B.I.G., birth name Christopher Wallace, only released one album in his lifetime. Mull over that statement for a minute. Biggie Smalls is generally considered to be one of the finest rappers ever carved from the oak tree of hip hop, and he only released one fucking album in his lifetime.

How is it possible that Biggie is that great, that he did more with his debut album than rappers that have been plugging away since 1979? It isn't. (And this is coming from a Biggie fan, one that always, without exception, chooses Biggie over 2Pac.) It isn't feasible that Biggie Smalls got everything right his first time out of the starting gate. His first album, Ready To Die, was riddled with freshman mistakes (although it is still pretty good overall), but that's okay. It's normal. You expect that. You release your first album, hope it sells okay, learn from your errors, grow as a musician, and steadily improve throughout your entire career. That's the way it's supposed to be.

Truth be told, Biggie Smalls only got the amount of press that he did while he was alive thanks to the unfortunate East Coast/West Coast rivalry that he found himself entangled with. Because Tupac Shakur was a larger-than-life character (if not a very good rapper). Because the media likes to portray events suck as this one (young African-American men doing battle with one another) as a "cautionary tale". Biggie was not considered the best rapper ever in any circles during his lifetime; he was merely thought of as good, with the potential to be great, but he needed more time to prove himself.

And then that shit happened with 2Pac. And then with Biggie himself. And we will never know if Biggie would become one of the greats through the tried and true method of practice.

However, we are able to ascertain a glimpse of the artist's progression on the double-disc set Life After Death, which doubles as his second and final album. (All of the other Notorious B.I.G. albums released afterward don't really count, and you know that.) Biggie's last magnum opus was released sixteen days after he passed in 1997, and became one of the first rap albums to sell over ten million discs (although, to be fair, as a double disc, it only had to sell five million albums to reach that distinction) thanks to Bad Boy label head/all around jackass Sean "Puffy" Combs's constant input: to my knowledge, Life After Death is one of the first rap albums that was specifically programmed to hit every single musical demographic available to them, a practice that is still done today, which is why hip hop is essentially dead. (I'm still puzzled as to why Puffy didn't try to include a country song on Life After Death.) Mixed in with Puff's piffle, though, is a darker-toned album than his debut, and we find Biggie suffering from intense paranoia brought about by success and mistrust of his peers. He witnesses death at every turn and anticipates his own passing, which makes for an incredibly somber listen; even the album's cover art plays up to this new world view. (Of course, this being a Bad Boy album, he makes his deep statements about life and death in between boasts of his sexual prowess and complaints that having more money seems to cause more problems in his life.)

I remember running out to the mall after class was over and listening to the first disc from this album in its entirety on the listening wall at Sam Goody. I wasn't able to buy it that day (lack of funds can be a bitch), but was able to add to its first-week sales that following weekend.

I guess we should be happy that we got to get a second album from the man.

DISC ONE

1. LIFE AFTER DEATH (INTRO) (FEAT PUFF DADDY)
I appreciate how Life After Death picks up right after Ready To Die, but the intro is unintentionally creepy as shit, thanks to the proximity of the release date from Biggie's actual passing. Puff's babbling also sounds pretentious as fuck. All in all, your average self-important rap album intro.

2. SOMEBODY'S GOTTA DIE
I never cared for this song.

3. HYPNOTIZE (FEAT PUFF DADDY & PAMELA LONG)
The first single, which I didn't really like at first. Seeing a bunch of girls at the club dance to it, and then hearing my wife sing along to the chorus, has turned me. The video is still just plain ridiculous, though.

4. KICK IN THE DOOR (FEAT THE MADD RAPPER)
The Madd Rapper interlude was funny the first time, but not so much today. However, look past that and you'll be rewarded with the fucking brilliant DJ Premier-produced "Kick In The Door", which uses Screaming Jay Hawkins's "I Put A Spell On You" to much better use than that dumbass Pringles commercial from a few years back. I can't state enough that this song is just awesome: when I had those headphones on at Sam Goody, I kept repeating this track over and over. And now that I know more about the creation of the song and hip hop in general, I think it's incredibly ballsy for Biggie to diss Primo's artist (at the time) Jeru The Damaja in the final verse, when he's essentially saying that to Primo's face.

5. FUCK YOU TONIGHT (FEAT R. KELLY)
Someone at Bad Boy had the brilliant idea of turning this into a radio hit by rechristening it "Lovin' You Tonight". Back when I was going through my Bad Boy phase, I thought this song was alright. Today, older and wiser, I'm kind of embarrassed (especially you can easily hear Kells singing that hook to a thirteen-year-old girl waiting outside of her school for a ride), but I'm sure there are some cute girls that still like this song, and for me, that's enough.

6. LAST DAY (FEAT THE LOX)
Produced by Havoc of Mobb Deep. Who would have ever thought that Havoc and The Lox would find themselves in opposite sides of a hip hop battle started by Curtis Jackson? (To his credit, Havoc hasn't actually gotten involved in the beef.) I never really liked this song, either.

7. I LOVE THE DOUGH (FEAT JAY-Z AND ANGELA WINBUSH)
Horrible. Yeah, that's the word I was looking for.

8. WHAT'S BEEF (FEAT PUFF DADDY)
Funny, I don't remember being disturbed by Biggie's mention of his n---a that's known to "kidnap kids, fuck them in the ass and throw them off a bridge" when I was younger. Was I that desensitized? Because that shit's fucked up. That said, this song is okay. (Like how I turned that around there?)

9. B.I.G. (INTERLUDE)
I know that the beat samples Schooly D's "P.S.K. (What Does It Mean)", but whenever I hear this interlude, all I hear is Siouxsie & the Banshees's "Kiss Them For Me", and while that is a good song, I'm pretty sure that's not the effect that Biggie and company intended.

10. MO MONEY MO PROBLEMS (FEAT PUFF DADDY, MA$E, & KELLY PRICE)
You already know this song. To me, this is the epitome of Puffy's Shiny Suit era, since it sounds like a Puffy and Ma$e song that Biggie was coerced into participating on with the threat of bodily harm.

11. N----S BLEED
Say what you want about the Biggie versus 2Pac debate, but Pac isn't known for telling stories in his rhymes; at least, not with the incredible attention to detail that Biggie employs. And as all great storytellers are prone to do, Biggie knows when to throw in a joke to alleviate the tension.

12. I GOT A STORY TO TELL
Did this really happen? Who knows? But it sounds plausible. The beat is too simple, and detracts from the tale, but I like how Biggie ends his verse, and then re-tells the story in a more traditional fashion, as if some more people showed up to the party.

Later pressings of Life After Death included a twenty-minute interview between Biggie and Rap City's Joe Clair immediately following "I Got A Story To Tell". I've never heard this interview, since I bought this album in its first pressing, so I'm not privy to any secrets that Biggie may have spilled.

DISC TWO

1. NOTORIOUS THUGS (FEAT BONE THUGS -N-HARMONY)
Bone Thugs-N-Harmony were big in my school in 1997 (you were issued a copy of E. 1999 Eternal at registration; I still have that tape somewhere), so when word got out that Biggie did a song with them, "Notorious Thugs" quickly became everybody's favorite song on Life After Death. I have many memories of riding around in the cars or various friends, driving to parties with this song stuck on repeat (yes, on purpose). As such, I get a nostalgic feeling whenever this song plays, and isn't that what music is great at doing, unlocking good memories? Even though, hearing this today, I realize that Biggie sounds as awkward on this beat as any rapper that makes the mistake of inviting Twista to the studio, the warm and fuzzies bring me back to a happier time.

2. MISS U (FEAT 112)
Pleasant enough. That's all I got.

3. ANOTHER (FEAT LIL KIM)
Biggie should have locked Puff Daddy out of the studio, lest his influence ruin yet another Life After Death song. Shit, too late.

4. GOING BACK TO CALI
B.I.G.'s attempt to show hip hop fans (and the media) that he had no beef with the West Coast, just with 2Pac and Suge Knight. The hook is lame, but I've always liked this track.

5. TEN CRACK COMMANDMENTS
Primo's other contribution, and while it isn't as nail-bitingly awesome as "Kick In The Door", it's still pretty good. It's also pretty hilarious that Jeru had the beat first, recording a promo for New York's Hot 97, before Biggie got a hold of it. And if anyone actually has a copy of that recording, I'd love to hear it. Anyone? Bueller?

6. PLAYA HATER (FEAT KEANNA HENSON)
This song fucked me up in 1997, since Biggie sings the entire track. Today, though, given the penchant of rappers who absolutely positively have to sing their own hooks (Curtis Jackson, anyone?) or even entire tracks (Snoop's "Sexual Eruption" is a trashy classic, stop lying to yourselves), Biggie just sounds ahead of his time. This isn't a good song by any measure, but just remember that it' s not supposed to be.

7. NASTY BOY (FEAT PUFF DADDY)
Sadly, I kind of like this track. I think the remix was a much better track, but I can't confirm that, as I am too lazy to try to find that in my stacks.

8. SKY'S THE LIMIT (FEAT 112)
I fucking love this song (especially when Biggie talks about sewing alligators on his shirts), but I probably developed those feelings after watching Spike Jonze's brilliant video for the first time, with the kids playing the rapper roles (you just gotta love the little boy dressed up as Busta Rhymes, but dressing a little girl as Lil Kim is disturbing as fuck).

9. THE WORLD IS FILLED... (FEAT CARL THOMAS, PUFF DADDY & TOO $HORT)
This song got some radio airplay around my way. If you can look past Puff Daddy's verse, you'll find a pretty damn entertaining track.

10. MY DOWNFALL (FEAT DMC)
I always considered DMC to be a strange choice for the hook, but it works. This song is a pretty good aural representation of paranoia, although Puffy's shouting threatens to hash the mellow. Biggie's recollection of his own death is pretty unsettling, though.

11. LONG KISS GOODNIGHT (FEAT PUFF DADDY)
Supposed produced by The Rza, although I've heard word on the Interweb that 4th Disciple actually created this instrumental, only to trade production credits with Prince Rakeem for Killah Priest's "Tai Chi". Is that true? Probably not, since I don't know why 4th Disciple would give up a production credit on a project with a much higher profile. But either way, this song is good.

12. YOU'RE NOBODY (TILL SOMEBODY KILLS YOU) (FEAT FAITH EVANS & PUFF DADDY)
A good song, but a very creepy way to end what would end up being your final album. It's fitting, though.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Let's be honest with ourselves. Life After Death is a waste of resources. It certainly did not have to consist of two discs; I still believe that this concept only came about because 2Pac was audacious enough to record a double-disc album immediately after being sprung from the clink. However, most of those songs were garbage, and the same can be said about Biggie's last album. However, there is a great collection of songs (not necessarily an album, but a collection of songs) to be culled from the debris, and those songs are listed below. While I am thankful that we were given a wealth of new material, especially since Biggie would never again record, I would have preferred a shorter, tighter set to honor his legacy, rather than this bloated affair.

BUY OR BURN? About half of the twenty-four songs are good; the rest are crap. I'm going to tentatively recommend a purchase, though, since you can probably get this for five bucks. Consider yourselves forewarned, though.

BEST TRACKS: "Kick In The Door"; "N---s Bleed"; "Notorious Thugs"; "Going Back To Cali"; "Ten Crack Commandments"; "Sky's The Limit"; "You're Nobody (Till Somebody Kills You)"

-Max

RELATED POSTS:
The Notorious B.I.G. - Ready To Die
Puff Daddy & The Family - No Way Out

The Notorious B.I.G. - Ready To Die (September 13, 1994)

The overrated rapper Canibus once said, "The greatest rapper of all time died on March 9th". Ten years ago to this day, actually, and Christopher Wallace can still safely be considered one of the greats, with little to no argument. Gunned down during the heat of the "east coast/west coast" beef, Biggie was never truly able to create the catalog of music that would define his legacy.

It's too bad that a certain somebody feels otherwise, repeatedly raping his corpse by releasing sub-par albums chock-a-block full with collaborations with rappers that Biggie probably would never have worked with otherwise. I haven't seen this level of incompetence in the handling of a legend since Pac died, and I don't think Pac was even a good rapper in the truest sense. (His songs had more emotion than you could shake a stick at, though.)

Ready To Die was the debut album from the upstart Notorious B.I.G. The second release on Puff Daddy's Bad Boy Records label (the first being Craig Mack's Project: Funk Da World, an overall exercise in futility, albeit with one or two hits), Biggie would soon become Bad Boy Records, epitomizing the lavish lifestyle of a successful rapper (at least right until he was usurped by his boss). Rumors of Biggie getting fucked over with his publishing aside, Ready To Die accomplished a lot for being just one album; it introduced an artist who did not disappoint, it turned its record label into a household name; it turned the white kids in the suburbs who actually buy all the hip hop records on to a rapper who was at ease with both the club-friendly jams and the gangster shit; and, ultimately, it led to this.

As it stands, Ready To Die is one of only two albums that Christopher Wallace participated in recording, and is the only one to be released while he was still around to celebrate the success.

1. INTRO
Hey, I never said there wasn't an intro to this fucker.

2. THINGS DONE CHANGED
An interesting first song, but not great.

3. GIMME THE LOOT
Biggie does a back-and-forth with a high-pitched version of himself, advising (in both hilarious and controversial detail) would-be victims to run their jewels and garments. (The controversial stuff was eventually edited out before the album's release, but it's not hard to figure out what he really said.)

4. MACHINE GUN FUNK
Not horrible, but I'm still waiting for that next shit.

5. WARNING
Contains one of the best first lines in hip hop history: "Who the fuck is this?". Simply a great song about a rich man's overall paranoia regarding his so-called "friends". The video is even pretty good, especially for one shot that sums up the whole song: Biggie eating cereal (with the brand names hilariously hidden) at his table. Even though he has his riches, his bitches, and his producer pretending that he's a trained actor in the video, ultimately, he was all alone.

6. READY TO DIE
Title tracks, as a rule, usually suck. This one doesn't.

7. ONE MORE CHANCE
The album version is much, much better (and much filthier) than both the hip hop remix (bad name for a remix, by the way) and the slow-jam mix that Ashanti would later rape and pillage...sorry, I mean "sample".

8. FUCK ME (INTERLUDE)
Um...notable, as it's Lil' Kim who is faking the orgasm? (Or maybe Biggie fucked her in the booth, I don't know, and I don't care.)

9. THE WHAT (FEAT METHOD MAN)
This was a huge, huge collabo back in the day, especially since Biggie had beef with the Wu. Method Man was his old-school grimy ass self, and Biggie more than held his own.

10. JUICY
The single that introduced Biggie to the masses. Also the song where he talks about "blow[ing] up like the World Trade", for those who also read the Jay-Z review earlier.

11. EVERYDAY STRUGGLE
Not bad, but...

12. ME & MY BITCH
Story Time with Christopher Wallace, and he pulls it off like a charm.

13. BIG POPPA
You already heard this one; my opinion won't matter anyway. (Okay, since you asked; it's all right, but I'd rather listen to the Isley Brothers' "Between The Sheets" any day of the week.)

14. RESPECT (FEAT DIANA KING)
Every good album has to have one clunker. I present exhibit A.

15. FRIEND OF MINE
Meh.

16. UNBELIEVABLE
DJ Premier supplies the bangin' beat to one of the best songs in the Biggie catalog. This song is just ghetto like sunflower seeds and quarter waters.

17. SUICIDAL THOUGHTS
I thought this song was amazing when I first heard it, especially the part at the end where he kills himself and Puff freaks out. Hell, I even wrote about this song for an English paper once. (Got an A, if anyone gives a fuck.) Still an awesome piece of work.

In 2004, Bad Boy Records celebrated the ten-year anniversary of Ready To Die's platinum success by releasing a remastered edition with a DVD and two bonus tracks:

WHO SHOT YA?

This song is just epic. Internet nerds also believe that Biggie was taking a pot shot at 2Pac's recent shooting, but internet nerds are dead wrong here.

JUST PLAYING (DREAMS)
This had been out for a while on mixtapes; it's better known as "Dreams of Fucking An R&B Bitch". And it sounds exactly like it reads: delicious. C'mon, like you've never fantasized about sleeping with celebrities before? All Biggie did was record his thoughts on wax.

In 2006. Bad Boy Records lost a court battle stemming over the illegal Isley Brothers sample on the title track, and was forced to pull the original from the shelves...after it had already been available for twelve years. Smart move, Isleys. Anyway, Puff quietly re-released the remastered edition with a slightly different version of "Ready To Die" included. I have no idea what the "new" version sounds like, though, since I still have my original copy from 1994.

FINAL THOUGHTS: Ready To Die is probably one of the best debut albums in the history of hip hop, and I say that even though I fully admit that some of the songs are shitty. Oddly, everyone always calls out Puff Daddy as Biggie's producer, and I suppose in an executive producer capacity that makes sense, but as in producing the instrumentals? Puff's name is rarely found here. Talents like Primo and Easy Mo Bee (who doesn't really work anymore, and that's a damn shame) contribute that gutter shit that assisted in taking hip hop back from Dr. Dre's G-Funk soundscapes.

BUY OR BURN? Oh, come on. Buy this shit. Buy it! BUY IT! You can even choose between the original and remastered version, as either one is worth the benjamins. Although if you spend one hundred dollars on this CD, you might be getting ripped off.

BEST TRACKS: "Warning"; "Suicidal Thoughts"; "Unbelievable"; "The What"

-Max

RELATED POSTS:
Puff Daddy & The Family - No Way Out