Label: Bad Boy Records
'Somehow the rap game reminds me of the crack game,' Nas observed on 'Represent,' from his impeccable debut album. Where Illmatic exposed the ravages of the drug trade through the eyes of a project poet, Biggie Smalls' debut Ready to Die told a similar story from the inside looking out. This shift in perspective was clear from the opening moments of the album's first single, a cut called 'Juicy' that laid crack-dealer angst over a radio-friendly Mtume sample: 'This album is dedicated to all the teachers who told me I'd never amount to amount to nothin',' Biggie said with more than a touch of bitterness. 'To all the people that lived above the buildings that I was hustling in front of that called the police on me when I was just trying' to make some money to feed my daughter, and all the niggas in the struggle.'
Christopher Wallace was well acquainted with said struggle. A small-time hustler who grew up on the streets of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, Biggie came to discover that he was even better at rapping than slanging and stickups. He made his name in the rap game battling on street corners and went on to record his demo in the home studio of local DJ 50 Grand. That tape found its way to Big Daddy Kane's DJ Mister Cee and from there to The Source's 'Unsigned Hype' column, which soon landed Biggie in the office of Sean 'Puffy' Combs, the youngest A&R exec in the history of Uptown Records. By that time Puff was already planning to launch his own label and he wanted Biggie down with his team. Biggie's lyrical gifts were undeniable, his booming voice spitting punchlines so hard that they left dents in listeners' brains. But he was nobody's sucker, and took a fair amount of convincing to believe the 'it was all a dream' visions with which Sean 'Puffy' Combs was filling his head.
Dora the explorer watch free. The scientist mp3 download. Comparing Ready to Die and Illmatic Indian punjabi hit songs mp3. may be unfair, but in the end it's unavoidable.
The album was recorded in two bursts of creativity, the first half-hard-body cuts like 'Machine Gun Funk,' 'Things Done Changed' and 'Gimme The Loot'-laid down when Biggie was signed through Uptown Records. After Puffy was fired (no doubt for spending too much time and energy on his own dreams and not enough working for his employer) financial pressures led Biggie to resume hustling in North Carolina while Puffy negotiated the multi-million-dollar deal at Arista to launch his own Bad Boy imprint. The hits came during the second wave of recording: 'Big Poppa' and 'One More Chance' and 'Juicy' were the songs that made the 300-pound-plus BK roughneck an unlikely pop star.
Comparing Ready to Die and Illmatic may be unfair, but in the end it's unavoidable. Like most great MCs after 1994, Biggie was profoundly influenced by Nas. Moreover, the composition of his album—from the cover art that led to Biggie getting called out on 'Shark NIggas (Biters)' from Raekwon's stellar debut OB4CL, to the opening interlude that was so reminiscent of 'The Genesis'—is so close that it almost feels like an Illmatic homage.
There were many important differences as well. While Ready to Die was certified platinum in less than a year, it took almost two years for Nas' debut to be certified gold. Puffy and Biggie proved that New York rappers could earn platinum plaques, even if they did it by taking a page from Dr. Dre's funk-driven production style and blending it with rugged New York beats by the likes of DJ Premier, Easy Mo Bee, and Lord Finesse with tracks that took.
On songs like 'Warning' and 'Unbelievable' Biggie Smalls raps like 'a motherfuckin rap phenomonen,' as he immodestly put it on 'The What,' another of Ready to Die's untouchable classics. Songs like these are what earned Ready to Die its spot among the top 5 albums of rap's greatest decade.
Nas and Big remain two of the greatest MCs in history, and their debuts stand as pillars of New York hip-hop. Where Nas followed his debut with a 20-year career and a rich and varied body of work, Biggie's debut album ended with a song depicting his own suicide. The fact that he did not live to see the release of his masterpiece, Life After Death, says more about hip-hop in the 1990s than 10,000 thinkpieces, and underscores the realness that oozes from every pore of this remarkable album. --Rob Kenner
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