Originally appears in XXL‘s April 2004 issue

The Notorious B.I.G.’s 1994 debut Ready To Die is a double threat: a serious, artistic album equipped with catchy, radio-friendly singles. Rap Svengali Sean “Puffy” Combs encouraged his hardcore young MC to put his mack down on records like “Big Poppa” and “One More Chance”; Biggie played along, and it worked. Becoming hip-hop’s answer to the hedgehog-looking porn star Ron Jeremy (if he could get laid, anyone could), the plus-size charmer conquered the pop charts and watched his sales pass the two-million mark. • Mainly, though, Ready To Die offers uncompromising street material—a grim depiction of urban hopelessness told in one of the most immediate voices the form has ever known. • The difference between the grimier content and the hit singles might be explained by a two-part recording process. Songs like “Ready To Die,” “Gimme The Loot” and “Things Done Changed” (which engineer “Prince” Charles Alexander characterized as “a scream from the ghetto”) were recorded in 1993—shortly after Puffy signed Big to Uptown Records on the strength of a demo tape made in the basement of former Big Daddy Kane DJ, Mister Cee. On these records, an inexperienced, higher-pitched Biggie sounds hungry and paranoid. Also notable were the notebooks Biggie brought to the studio; he was still writing down some of his rhymes. • But with less than a full album’s worth of material recorded, Puffy was fired from Uptown, leaving his signee in contractual limbo. Big quickly slid back into the drug game, famously leaving a North Carolina drug house—at the behest of Puff, who’d sent him a ticket back to New York—one day before it was raided by the police and its occupants were sent to jail. • When he returned to the studio to record the second half of the album in 1994, he possessed a smoother, more confident vocal tone. He had also learned to commit his lyrics to memory, eschewing pens and paper. By this time, Puffy, who had eyes beyond the East Coast, had launched his own company, Bad Boy Entertainment, with Craig Mack’s smash, “Flava In Ya Ear,” and invented the remix. (Or at least introduced the concept of the overbearing executive producer to hip-hop.) Endlessly tinkering with instrumentals, mixes and vocals, Puffy worked from a blueprint more Motown than Cold Chillin’—the Bad Boy brand superseded all else. This was obvious on “One More Chance,” which was remixed three times for the album and once more for 12-inch release. If the original producer wasn’t present, Puff would ask another producer to add drums, a sample or even a whole new instrumental. • While Puffy’s vision pushed Ready To Die to higher heights than other records of the era, it was Big’s ability to be menacing one moment (“I don’t give a fuck if you’re pregnant/Gimme the baby rings and the ‘Number One Mom’ pendant…”) and heart-wrenchingly honest the next (“My mama got cancer in her breast/Don’t ask me why I’m muthafuckin’ stressed…”) that truly sets his debut apart. Ready To Die is more than a street record; it’s a vulnerable record. • On the seventh anniversary of Biggie’s death[eds. note: 2006 is the ninth anniversary], XXL has compiled a track-by-track, behind-the-scenes breakdown of the work that went into creating a classic, Ready To Die, as told by those involved.—ADAM MATTHEWS

Ready to Remember
Biggie’s Bad Boys:

-Lil’ Cease: Biggie’s close friend, member of rap group Junior M.A.F.I.A.
-Banger: Junior M.A.F.I.A. member
-“Prince” Charles Alexander: Ready To Die engineer
-Easy Mo Bee: Producer
-Chucky Thompson: Producer, member of Bad Boy Records’ Hitmen collective
-Nashiem Myrick: Producer, member of the Hitmen
-Mister Cee: DJ at New York’s Hot 97, former DJ for Big Daddy Kane, discovered Biggie in 1992.
-Matteo “Matt Lyphe” Capoluongo (a.k.a. “Matty C”): Former Source staffer, brought Big’s demo to Sean “Puffy” Combs
-Method Man: Wu-Tang Clan rapper
-Jean “Poke” Oliver: Producer, one-half of the beatmaking duo TrackMasters
-Digga: Producer/Artist
-DJ Premier: Producer, one-half of rap duo Gang Starr
-Lord Finesse: Producer, member of Diggin’ in the Crates collective

1 ”Intro”

Produced by Sean “Puffy” Combs
Easy Mo Bee The whole story line for the album—starting in the beginning when you hear the robbery happening on the train and “Rapper’s Delight” in the background and everything—that was Puff’s concept: to create a story line for the album. He just gave me a list of records that he wanted and I brought them back to him. He said he wanted “Rapper’s Delight,” Audio Two’s “Top Billin’,” “Superfly.” We had “Got To Give It Up” by Marvin Gaye, [but it got changed] probably for sampling reasons. Songs that explain their era.
“Prince” Charles Alexander First of all, I’m the father on the intro. There are all these voices on the intro. That “Wilona, what the fuck you doing? You can’t control that goddamn boy!” That was me. And the guy at the end, the guard that lets them out of jail and says, “You’ll be back,” that’s me also. And the reason that they used me is because three guys had gone in and tried, I forgot who. I was there, Puffy was there, Biggie was there. I was engineering and a couple of guys who were just hanging around went in and tried to do that part. And they’re like very stiff-sounding: “God damn it, Wilona.” And I’m like, “Yo Puff, I am an angry Black man. You should let me try that.” I went in there and I screamed. I mean, Goddammit, Wilona! What the fuck you doing?! I was way, way up in it. They fucking rolled. They loved it. They kept it. That was one of the things that kind of helped me to bond with the whole project. ’Cause I’m about 10 years older than Puffy, so I was really professional. I had a really professional vibe. So when I went in and did that, that really broke a whole lot of ice.

2 ”Things Done Changed”

Produced by Dominic Owens and Kevin Scott
Lil’ Cease That was one that was most played in the car. Big loved that song. There was no particluar story behind it. It was more of a song that had a concept behind it rather than a story itself. Biggie made it to represent Brooklyn. To show how he grew up, how we grew up. He wanted to show what he was accustomed to and the lifestyle he was used to. It was one of the very first ones made. Whenever you make a track of that nature, with lyrics so real, it stands out.

3 “Gimme The Loot”

Produced by Easy Mo Bee
Easy Mo Bee When he did “Gimme The Loot” I was like, Whoa—dude’s got problems! People who wanna battle him, go up against him? Nobody’s gonna wanna battle this cat. If you heard everything he said in his lyrics, you won’t live. I remember very clearly that that song was done during the daytime. It was still light outside. Junior M.A.F.I.A. was there. I ain’t never really worked with nobody that really spit that hard before. So when I was in the studio, I was like, “Yo, man you sure you ain’t sayin’ too much?” And I remember Cease and Chico sittin’ back and sayin’, “Yo, Mo, just chill! You sensitive!” I was like, “I just wanna make sure we get sold. I don’t want no records getting snatched off the shelves.” That’s my whole thing. I guess that was their [definition] of being “sensitive.”
Maybe Puff didn’t necessarily respond to me at the time when I came to him and presented [my concerns] to him, but I remember telling him, “Yo, the shit about being pregnant, and the ‘Number One Mom’ pendant? Yo, be careful with that. Because you could have all kinds of Christian rights and women’s rights organizations trying to pull your stuff down off the shelves and all that.” At the time, Puffy kind of brushed it off. And I just walked away in my mind like, all right. But I guess later it made sense to him—even without him coming back to me. ’Cause [that lyric] got blurred out. So it worked out the way it was supposed to.
[As far as Big rhyming the two different characters’ voices], he went in the booth and then it just kind of happened. He just started doing it. He would do one voice, then come behind and do the other one later—just like, leave a gap so he could come back and fill the spaces. I was like, Yo, that’s creative! And he really had cats fooled. Even just last year, I was around somebody who was playing that, and still after all this time he was like, “Yo, who was that—that was Puff?” I was like, “Man, y’all really can’t hear that? That’s him! He did two voices.” That just shows you how good he was.
Mister Cee I clearly remember “Gimme The Loot,” because I did the scratches on it. Remembering that is like yesterday. I used Kid Hood’s verse from A Tribe Called Quest’s “Scenario (Remix).” And how I did the turntables and made the word “Bad, bad, bad” from turning the knob off on the turntable from pressing the stop button. Each time that I brought the record back, it’s a different effect to where you turn the knob off on the turntable to where you stop the turntable. You get a different effect on the record. So when you bring it regularly it’s like, “Bad.” Turn the knob off, “Baaad”—slower. Press the button, “Baaaad”—slowest.

4 “Machine Gun Funk”

Produced by Easy Mo Bee
Easy Mo Bee Biggie picked that beat in my car. I had this green Acura, and we used to ride around Brooklyn. Like Fulton St. and St. James where he lived. I’d pick him up off the stoop where he lived. It’d be me, him, D.Roc, Lil’ Cease, Chico—as many as we could—ridin’ around in the car. We’d just ride around and just blaze and listen to beats. And that’s how he picked a lot of the beats. But the actual session for “Machine Gun Funk”… It’s vague to me, to be honest. Let’s put it like this: There was some hazy years. I’m a changed man now.
Chucky Thompson Big was crazy. He was just in there with some socks on and some boxer drawers—’cause it was really hot—doing his rhymes. That’s when he was actually writing stuff down. He didn’t take long at all. It was like he knew what he wanted to say. He’d be in there chilling, smoking or whatever and then he’d write two words, and then he’d go back to chilling and write two more words, and then he’d go in the booth.

5 “Warning”

Produced by Easy Mo Bee
Easy Mo Bee The significant thing about “Warning” is—and I’m definitely not trying to diss him, he put me on the map, he’s the first I ever worked with, so total respect to him—but that beat was offered first to Big Daddy Kane. I remember him sittin’ in my crib, and I was playing him beats. I forget the album at the time that he was doing. And you know Kane was always into the Barry White, Isaac Hayes thing. So I did this joint off of Isaac Hayes, and I’m just feelin’ it. I’m feelin’ myself. I just know he gonna love this. This is the vibe. But he was like, “Play the next beat.” I was like, “Yo, hold up, man. You sure you don’t want that? That’s Isaac Hayes!” He said, “You heard what I said, play the next beat.”
So I just kept the beat and held onto it. A few months later when it was time to play Big beats, I played it for him. Aw man, Puffy went crazy! He went crazy, like, “Yo man, this is it!”

6 “Ready To Die”

Produced by Easy Mo Bee
Easy Mo Bee Again, here we go with the “sensitive” part. When Big said, “Fuck my mom…” When he said, “Fuck the world, fuck my moms and my girl,” I was like, Damn! Okay, maybe “Fuck the world.” Maybe “Fuck your girl.” But, “Fuck your moms?!”
We all know he didn’t literally mean that. Anybody knows that. That was just his whole intensified approach to explaining just how much he felt. He was ready to die. It was just an emotional expression. But again, when he said stuff like that, I was like, “It’s like I’m working with Ice Cube!” AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted? I was like, Brooklyn’s Most Wanted! I’m sure Ice Cube and N.W.A and stuff like that had a profound effect on him. I’m sure in some type of way he was influenced by that stuff. At the time, we all were.

7 “One More Chance”

Produced by Norman & Digga/ Bluez Brothers, Chucky Thompson and Sean “Puffy” Combs
Additional vocals by Total
Instruments by Chucky Thompson
Lil’ Cease My sister did the interlude for “One More Chance”—with all the girls on it. The other girls on it, that’s just my sister’s friends. My little niece, she did the intro part before “One More Chance”: “All you hoes calling here for my daddy…” It was just people that was just around. If you’re around and he need you—“Yo, I need a hook done.”
“Prince” Charles Alexander “One More Chance,” I remember specifically. That song has a piano figure that goes ba-bu-da-na-na-na-na. One of the things that I did is, all the way through the song there are two parts of that piano figure, and the second part I had to keep riding, so I had to raise the level. So it’s like ba-bu-da-na-na-na-na, and louder, ba-bu-da-na-na-na-na. So that it would be level with the first song. And it was a request. Puffy actually asked me to do that, because it was a sample, but he didn’t want the sample to sound just like it had sounded before. He wanted a nuance. He wanted something that had its character in the Bad Boy world. It was little stuff like that he was requesting that really gave Bad Boy a sound. I remember him turning to me and saying, “Do you think we have a sound?” This was after the “Flava In Ya Ear,” after Biggie came out, and I think we were moving onto Faith. And Puffy turned to me and said, “Do you think that we, meaning Bad Boy, have established a sound?”
Digga Puff was in my ear every 10 seconds in that session. When me, Big, Cease and Klept and some of the crew was in the studio it was all good. But once Puff came on the scene everything got tight. At the time, Puff was still learning about production and he wanted to show that he knew something about music. He wanted certain arrangements. And I was looking at him like, “What the hell is this guy talking about?” We’d listen to him for half a second, then we’d be like, “Yeah, whatever.”

8 “#!*@ Me (Interlude)”

Produced by Sean “Puffy” Combs
Lil’ Cease We were just trying to put some personality and just put some comedy and some sense of humor to it. Him and Lil’ Kim did it. What they did was, there was a piano in the booth of the studio we was working in, it was in Daddy’s House. It had the piano and the chair to the piano. Big is heavy, when he sit on something you hear that creak, that’s that shit when there’s too much weight on that shit. And he just told Kim to sit on top and he just like started rocking her.
Chucky Thompson That was crazy, ’cause they kept laughing. There was even sicker takes that we couldn’t use ’cause we all kept laughing. But she was tearing his ass up. They were in the booth with the lights out. We didn’t know what that little bed noise was. Somebody said, “What the hell is that noise?” He was like, “It’s the piano stool.” He was sitting on there, shaking it.

9 “The What”

Produced by Easy Mo Bee
Featuring Method Man
Method Man My relationship with Big was cool. When I seen him, it was always love. Even if the rest of my niggas ain’t fuck with him, I fucked with him. ’Cause it was like, Well, that’s how they feel—I don’t necessarily feel that way about you and shit. It was always on speaking terms—we smoked blunts and shit. We almost got bagged smoking some weed at the airport in North Cackalacka. Word. The guy came over, we all lit up cigarettes. But that’s a long story right there… He was a funny muthafucka too—make you laugh all fuckin’ day, man.
It was no secret: Rae didn’t like him, Ghost didn’t like him. They thought he was a biter. But if you look at Rae and Ghost, they don’t like nobody! The rest of my niggas had love for Big. It was just Rae and Ghost. The other niggas had no problem. You can’t hate a nigga for doing his thing, it’s ridiculous.
But there were moments where they in the house, and we in the house. And my niggas—it’s like we’re a unit, we moved as a unit. So where if one of my niggas ain’t speakin’, then nobody was speakin’. And we would just roll right by a nigga, walk right past. But Lil’ Cease can vouch for this, and my niggas can vouch for this—I always stopped to give word with Big. No matter what.
There was a show at Shelter, I think that was the name of the place. And he had performed, and Wu-Tang had performed that night, and Yo Yo performed that night too. Outside the club Big approached me and shit. Like, “Yo, I wanna do something with you on my album.” I was like, “Alright, yo, just make it happen. I’ll come through and shit.” I knew Tracy Waples, and she was tight with Puff and them—she works for ’em now—she hooked everything up. I went through that night, kicked it for awhile and shit, talking back and forth about shit—that’s when I found out he was a funny nigga, ’cause he had me crackin’ up. We puffed some blunts, Mo Bee threw on the beat. He was like, let’s just grind this shit out. We wrote our verses. We was both in the same spot, writing our verses together.
The way he ended his verse—he wanted me to start my verse with “T.H.O.D.,” because he ends his verse with, “You can’t fuck with M.E.” So that’s why my verse starts out, “T.H.O.D. Man…” But it didn’t actually come out that way. You can’t hear it, because I came over the top of him. If I wouldn’t have [rhymed over him], it wouldn’t have been on beat.
When I left, we didn’t have no title for the shit, but it was a tight-ass song. I couldn’t care less about the title, because at that time, Wu-Tang songs never had a title that had anything to do with the song. Like, the hook could be, “Yeah, nigga/Kill, nigga…” But the title of the song would be “Death In Current’s Wake Of The Absence To The Third Power,” or some shit.
Easy Mo Bee I remember Meth came to the studio. I was the producer, but I was being a little groupie, like, Oh shit! There go Method Man over there! Knowing that this nigga’s gonna blow, and we ’bout to be big here. Just taking it all in, man. Just loving it for the moment that it was.
When I heard the chorus [“Fuck the world/ Don’t ask me for shit...”] I was like, Okay, this definitely ain’t going on the radio. Again, like I was saying, I guess there was that whole “sensitive” part about me. There I went again, worrying: “Yo, man, we gonna sell records? I don’t want them to pull it down off the shelf, man. This nigga’s dope, man. We can’t mess this up.” Again, Lil’ Cease was like, “Yo Mo, chill. You sensitive!” That’s Lil’ Cease. My man. He gets the “sensitive” credit!
“The What.” I titled that song! That took me back to two years before, when I recorded with Miles Davis. Because Miles was a hardly-talk, express-his-self-when-he-wanted, the-way-he-wanted kind of guy. You’d be talking to him, and he’d just go, “Hmm.” I once asked Miles what he wanted to name a song—and we had already recorded about three or four songs—and he was like, “I don’t know, name ’em whatever you want to.”
With “The What,” the song was done and everything, and Big, Puff and me was standing there. And I remember Puff in particular was like, “Yo, what we gonna call this shit?” And I told him, “Yo, I nickname all my beats on the disc that I saved them to, so I know what each disc is.” So for whatever reason, I wrote on this disc, “The What.” Puff was like, “Yo, that shit is cool.”
Method Man A lot of quotes off that record have been used in hooks for other artists’ records. I want my money, y’all bitch-ass niggas! I got paid $2,500 for “The What.” And I had to hunt Puffy down for my $2,500. It took like two months to get it. I was like, “C’mon Puff, stingy bastard, give me my money!”

10 “Juicy”

Produced by Jean “Poke” Oliver and Sean “Puffy” Combs
Additional vocals by Total
Lil’ Cease “Juicy” was done later. That was a “need-to-do” record. You gotta understand, that was back in like ’94 or ’95. Niggas would stay rhyming over R&B beats. That “Juicy” beat, that’s an R&B beat. We used to listen to that shit a lot. Like, we have this one Enuff tape, and he did like this old-school mix that had all that old shit on it. And this CD went from the house to the car to another muthafuckin’ house to the studio. That was the CD we used to listen to all day. That’s what I listen to right now, but I got that shit from Big. Like, Big listened to a bunch of old shit. And a bunch of old-school shit too, like old-school hip-hop shit.
Poke Puff had the idea he wanted to make a radio record that was still melodic. He suggested to me doing something with [Mtume’s] “Juicy Fruit,” so I took it home and put it together. I went into the studio—at that time, Puffy was living in Scarsdale, and I was staying there for a minute.
I used an MPC60. I just reinforced the bass lines and drums and tried to make it bigger than the original. But it was pretty much I just looped it and had the elements on top of it, to give it a little more hip-hop flavor. I added hi-hats and bass lines. I arranged it better, so he’d know where the rhyme and hook comes in. The hook, it’s like another break in the record. There are lots of breaks in the record, so I had enough room to take all the parts that we needed.
Big thought it was a popcorn record. He wanted to make all gangsta records. But Puff knew at the time radio wasn’t into that gangsta rap stuff. Big was like, “Yo, this guy is trying to make me an opera singer.” But Big was going to do everything that Puff asked him. He was at least going to try it. Once it became a hit, he realized: “These are the records I need to make.” When you get into this game you want to be a hardcore rapper, but those records only go so far.
Matt Lyphe Both me and Big wanted “Machine Gun Funk” to be the first single. That’s what we both agreed on. And slowly, he was being swayed otherwise. I can remember a conversation with him trying to tell me, “Matt, I understand now that this [“Juicy”] is the record that is going to make me have commercial success.”
“Prince” Charles Alexander That fear. That, “I don’t know if I can succeed,” was driving Puffy. It was driving Biggie. Biggie says it in the lyrics of “Juicy”: If it didn’t work out, he was going to go back to slinging crack on the street. It was a time when everybody was not too sure if the public was going to get it.

11 “Everyday Struggle”

Produced by Norman & Digga/Bluez Brothers
Lil’ Cease The story line of it, that shit is just a real mission for some people. Like, just that whole rundown, it was so detailed. Just that struggle, just that life, moving that way. He just broke that shit down, detailed it. It’s telling something about his life or somebody else’s life. That shit is like watching a series or watching a movie.
Digga Big was getting antsy, like, “Yo, I gotta get this song off! I want that song bad.” I could see him just like sitting at the board, he wasn’t saying nothing. He was just bobbing his head. When I was picking out the instruments he would make a face like, “Yeah, I want something similar to that.” The guy was always thinking about how he wanted to make something better.

12 “Me & My Bitch”

Produced by Norman & Digga/Bluez Brothers, Chucky Thompson and Sean “Puffy” Combs
Instruments by Chucky Thompson
Nashiem Myrick That was a remix because we already had a track for that. I don’t know why Puff ain’t use the original track. Either he couldn’t clear the sample, or I don’t know what happened. I forget the original song. It probably was an Al Green record, but I don’t know. I can’t remember. We did it over. Chuck played the guitar. He used original instruments. I guess that was another sample problem.
Digga The original sample that we used was from a Minnie Riperton song that Stevie Wonder wrote. When they sent it out to him, he was like, “I love the song. But this cursing, I’m not with it. You can’t use it.” So they got Chucky to come in and add some bars here and take some bars there. He just had to change up the music so that Big could use it.
Big started to record “Me & My Bitch” at the end of a session and he didn’t like it. So he kind of like erased it and he went into another studio, wrote some more stuff and then he came back out. It probably took him a good 20, 30 minutes. He ate before he went in, and then he comes out like he just fucking walked to Russia. “Ain’t no more chicken wings? Order some more wings!” Like, “Yo, we just finished eating, you was in there for like 20 minutes.” He just burnt all that shit off. Big was just a real funny-ass dude at all times. The only time he had a little grimace on his face was when Puff tried to be an asshole. When that was going on, Big was like, “This fucking guy! He’s trying to rule me. I can’t rock like that.”

13 “Big Poppa”

Produced by Chucky Thompson and Sean “Puffy” Combs
Nashiem Myrick Puff said he wanted to use “Between The Sheets.” He said loop it. Me and Chucky went in—that’s when we moved the studio to the Hit Factory, and we produced it in there. That song was actually [supposed to be] for Mr. Cheeks, the Lost Boyz. We gave that song to the Lost Boyz. And then something happened and Puff was like, “Get that song back, get it back from him.” We traded them for another track. Remember that song, “Jeeps, Lex Coups, Bimaz & Benz?” That track Easy Mo Bee did for Craig Mack. That was going to follow up “Flava In Ya Ear,” but Craig didn’t like it. He couldn’t rhyme to it or something. So we ended up trading that track to the Lost Boyz for “Big Poppa.” Both of those songs became hits, so I guess it was a good trade.
Chucky Thompson Knowing Biggie as a person, he’s bigger than New York. He’s a real universal artist. His style reminded me of Ice Cube. So I was like, “Let me see if I can put him on a bigger page.” And that’s why I came with that little West Coast line. I just kind of took him out of the New York vibe and took him a little bit more out West, and he carried it. At that time, we were listening to Snoop’s album. We knew what was going on in the West through Dr. Dre. Big just knew the culture, he knew what was going on with hip-hop. It was more than just New York, it was all over.
Matt Lyphe I think another important misconception about the making of that album, the production of that album, is that Puffy was coming up with creative, catchy loops for Big to rhyme on. Big was very savvy himself in thinking of creative, catchy loops to rhyme on. I can remember specifically him telling me: “I’m going to rhyme over that ‘Bonita Applebum’ [A Tribe Called Quest’s 1990 single that sampled the Isley’s Brothers’ ‘Between the Sheets’].” That was his idea. That’s “Big Poppa.” That’s “Between The Sheets.”

14 “Respect”

Produced by Jean “Poke” Oliver and Sean “Puffy” Combs
Additional vocals by Diana King
Banger “Nineteen Seventy something/Nigga I don’t sweat the date/My moms is late!” That shit was ill. How he’d do our situation or our conversation—he’d analyze it and absorb it and suck it up and then make a song about it. He absorbed his whole life.

15 “Friend Of Mine”

Produced by Easy Mo Bee
Easy Mo Bee Big used to be out on the avenue. He used to be standing out there with Lil’ Cease. And we could either find him on the avenue, or he was around the corner on his stoop. If he was in the neighborhood, he was in either of them two places. I remember hooking up this beat and [finding Big at] this fried chicken spot, which to my knowledge is still right there on Fulton between Washington and St. James. I rolled up in the car, I got the beat ready, I’m happy. I was like, “Yo Big.” He came over to the passenger window, I told him to get in, and was like, “Yo check this out, man.” He was like, “Yo, I’m lovin that, Mo.”
I think what was helpful was the hook that I had on there. That just told him what to talk about on the record. He ended up doing a relationship-type record, talking about a chick.
The thing about that record is [the hook I sampled]: “You’re no friend of mine/You know that ain’t right.” That’s Black Mambo. I might’ve been working with hard-ass Big, but I was gonna pull in a whole other crowd because of that Black Mambo. Black Mambo was from the Paradise Garage. DJ Larry Levan would throw that on—either mix it with beats, with other songs, or he would just throw it on a capella by itself in the club—and you would hear people stomping and going crazy. So I knew that anybody who heard that song was gonna think about the Paradise Garage—a disco, dance-music type of club from back in the day. So there are dance music elements attached to the song, but it fit.

16 “Unbelievable”

Produced by DJ Premier
DJ Premier “Unbelievable” was the final song [recorded for] Ready To Die. I used to see Big all the time over on Washington and Fulton St., because I used to live on Washington between Lafayette and Greene, at Branford Marsalis’ crib. We’d always go down to the corner to get our 40s and Big and all of them—Kim, everybody—used to be on the corner every Friday. I used to see Big and Big was always like, “One day I’m gonna get a beat from you.” But when it came to him asking me to do “Unbelievable,” I didn’t really have time to do the song because I was about to go on tour. He was like, “Dawg, I gotta have you on here.” He even told me, “My budget is over, I have no money. Preem, please look out.” I was getting top prices back then. But it was Big, so I was like, Fuck it. I did that song for $5,000.
I was telling him, “Dawg, I don’t know what to give you, because if I do something for you, it’s gotta be bananas.” He said, “Man, I don’t care if you take ‘Impeach The President.’ Take that and do a beat.” I said, “Really, you serious?” He said, “Hell yeah!” I went and got [the Honeydrippers’ breakbeat classic] “Impeach The President,” took the snare and kick and chopped it up, and started playing those little sounds. I wanted [to make] something more hardcore, ’cause he had played me “Warning” and stuff like that. I wanted to make something that was equally as hard or better. And he was like, “Nah, keep playing them little buttons you pushing and change it up and make it do different melodies on the hook and stuff.” He sat there a while and went in there and did the vocals. I never saw him write nothing. He’d be like, Let me get a pen and a pad—and then he wouldn’t write shit. Might scribble little funny objects or something. That was it.
Matter of fact, when we were doing “Unbelievable,” he brought Faith to the session the day we laid the verses, and said, “Yo, Premier, this is gonna be my wife. I’m about to marry this woman.” I was like, Word? I didn’t think nothin’ of it. And all of a sudden he was married.
Big was the one that told me to do the R. Kelly scratch [on the chorus]. He was like, “Yo, scratch that part off of ‘Your Body’s Callin’.’” ’Cause “Your Body’s Callin’” was popular at that time. I was like, “That might not match in the key.” He was like, “Just try it.” I didn’t have that record with me that day, so I went and got it the next day from my crib, brought it back in the studio, made the scratch, and I was like, Damn, man—this shit actually goes!

17 “Suicidal Thoughts”

Produced by Lord Finesse
Lord Finesse When I first worked with Big, he was as street as you can get. You couldn’t get any more street than what Big was rapping about and what he was bringing to the table. But him and Puff were both growing at an incredible rate, between Puff being at MCA getting ready to go to Bad Boy, and Biggie just being able to absorb what Puff was sending him like a sponge. Biggie watching and learning Puff was like Payton and Malone, ya know? Puffy dishing it and Biggie capturing and scoring, dunking. That combination was incredible.
Puff was at a point in his career where he was growing at an enormous rate; he had Craig Mack, and he’d just come off Mary and Jodeci. He was ready to show the world. He was able to sculpt Big to not only be an underground artist, but to be well rounded. To not just dunk, but be able to finger-roll, crossover dribble, to be the best player he could be in the game. And Big learned it real, real quick! When Ready To Die was almost done, Big had all the raw street incredible songs, and Puff said, “Okay, you got to do what you wanted with the album. Now let’s do what I want to do with the album.”
Big was like, “Puff said to do this, so I’m going to do it. Puff let me do what I want to do, so I’m going to do what he wants too.” Because of that, putting his ego to the side, like, “I’ma try this,” that gave him the edge. And after that, he tried everything and it all worked! It was crazy.
When we did “Suicidal Thoughts,” I laid the beat and Big told me he had this incredible idea. But I wasn’t in the studio with him when he laid that song. I didn’t hear “Suicidal Thoughts” until the album came out. People kept telling me, “Yo, that song you did with Big was crazy!” And I was like, What is they talking about? Because I wasn’t at the session. But when I heard it, all I could think in my head was, Wow…
“Prince” Charles Alexander “Suicidal Thoughts” was funny, ’cause at the end we were trying to get a “Thud.” At the end of the song, he drops the phone and he falls, ’cause he has shot himself. So he shoots himself, the phone drops and there was supposed to be a body thud. But we could not get a body thud, we looked on all kinds of different tapes that have sound effects. So I was like, “Yo, you know what we’re going to have to do?” So Puffy and I told Biggie to go in there—and to his credit, he’s a trooper, he was really a great guy—we turned off the lights and we played the music and we said, “Biggie, when the gun shoots, just fall. Just fall as hard you can.” Man, that gun went off and we heard the biggest fucking thud you ever want to hear in your life. We started rolling. We thought it was hilarious. ’Cause we didn’t think he was going to do it. But he did it and when I listen to it now, that’s one of the things I always think about that day. It was me, Puffy, Biggie. It was the way you would think an album was done—all the creative people are all in one room. I don’t know if Puffy works that way anymore. That was really intimate. He’s very much an executive now. He comes in and sanctions and puts his name on things that he’s requested. Back in the day, we were creating on the fly.
Nashiem Myrick That song is so real. I never talked to Big about that record, but everybody else was like, “We don’t even know if that can go on the album.” ’Cause he killed himself on the record. It’s like, How could you come back from that? No one has ever killed themselves at the end of their album.
The energy that came through him was the truth to everybody. He said things that was in everybody’s head, but no one has never put it down like that. He said things on that album, and that record in particular, that a lot of people in the hood, people in the streets—think that way. He said, “I’m a piece of shit, it ain’t hard to fucking tell.” I was like, Wow, how could you say that, son?

source

Originally appeared in XXL’s April 2003 issue

Life After Death proved to be a sadly prophetic title for 24-year-old Christopher “The Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace’s second album. Clearly, the Brooklyn rhyme slinger had it all mapped out. B.I.G. would follow up his platinum 1994 debut Ready To Die—a street hustler’s morality tale that ended with the narrator’s gunshot-inflicted suicide—with an expansive musical statement that unapologetically celebrated the successful MC’s newfound love of life and all its rewards. • Recorded over 18 months, in New York, Los Angeles and Trinidad, Life After Death documents the extraordinary and ultimately tragic final chapter in the life of an ascending star. The sessions were interrupted by B.I.G.’s arrest for marijuana and gun possession, a car accident that shattered his left leg and the increasing pressures of fame. And of course, everything was taking place under the shadow of a media frenzy surrounding the interpersonal strife between B.I.G. and California rapper Tupac Shakur. • Released March 25, 1997, less than a month after B.I.G. was tragically gunned down while leaving a Soul Train Awards party in Los Angeles, Life After Death sold a mammoth 690,000 copies its first week, according to SoundScan, debuting at no. 1 on both Billboard’s Pop and R&B charts. Eventually, it went on to surpass the sales mark set by Tupac’s nine-times platinum double album All Eyez On Me, joining Hammer’s Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ’Em as rap’s only diamond-certified discs. • On the sixth anniversary of the notorious MC’s passing, XXL interviewed friends, associates and fellow artists who played a part in the making of his classic opus. Assembled here, their remembrances give a track-by-track glimpse into a creative process that resulted in one of hip-hop’s most enduring artistic achievements. All hail Big Poppa!—KEITH MURPHY Sean “Puffy” Combs CEO of Bad Boy Records and Executive Producer of Life After Death • Steven “Stevie J.” Jordan Former member of the Hitmen, Bad Boy’s in-house production team. • Deric “D-Dot” Angelettie CEO of Crazy Cat Records. Former Hitman. A&R of Life After Death. Voice behind skit character, the Madd Rapper. • Lil’ Cease Longtime friend of The Notorious B.I.G. and member of the Brooklyn-based rap crew Junior M.A.F.I.A. • Lil’ Kim Bed-Stuy-born rapper and first lady of Junior M.A.F.I.A. • Nashiem Myrick Former Hitman. • Jadakiss Member of rap trio The LOX, formally signed to Bad Boy. • D. Roc Childhood friend and longtime confidant of B.I.G. • Havoc One half of the infamous rap group Mobb Deep. • DJ Premier One half of the revered rap duo Gang Starr. • Chucky Thompson Former Hitman. • Krayzie Bone One fourth of groundbreaking Cleveland, Ohio rap group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. • Layzie Bone One fourth of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. • Carlos Broady Former Hitman. • Carl Thomas Bad Boy R&B singer. • Easy Mo Bee Brooklyn-based rap music producer. • RZA Mastermind behind Staten Island rap conglomerate Wu-Tang Clan. • DMC Legendary MC from Run-DMC. • Kay-Gee Former member of Naughty By Nature, CEO of Divine Mill Records. • Buckwild Bronx-based hip-hop producer. • Schoolly-D Philadelphia gangster rap pioneer. • Clark Kent Mild-mannered hip-hop DJ and producer.

1 “Life After Death Intro”

Produced by Sean “Puffy” Combs and Steven “Stevie J.” Jordan
Stevie J. Me and Puff was in the studio just trying to think how we were gonna actually start the album. D-Dot came up with this cool suggestion while we were in the thinking process, of putting all of Big’s old records together like with his first CD, a lot of skits from there and interludes we didn’t use. And a big orchestral music sound around it just to make it huge. That’s one of the last things we did on the album. We just wanted to listen to the whole album and do what we had to do to make the beginning tight and the ending even tighter.

2 “Somebody’s Gotta Die”

Produced by Nashiem Myrick, Carlos Broady and Puffy
Puffy “Somebody’s Gotta Die” was the first song we recorded. It was just really some hardcore lyrics. It wasn’t to anybody, it wasn’t a threat, it wasn’t no subliminal underlying message. A lot of times when MCs talk about something and it’s gangsta and it’s violent, you talk about any opposing enemy or foe. But it wasn’t on no East Coast/West Coast thing or meant for anybody. It was just some lyrics. He had lyrics like that before there were so-called beefs, you know. So a lot of things people started to look for and read into just weren’t there, honestly.

3 “Hypnotize”

Produced by Deric “D-Dot” Angelettie, Ron Lawrence and Puffy
D-Dot When Biggie first heard the “Hypnotize” beat, he just flipped out. I did the music and picked that sample and Ron Lawrence programmed it. He’s the one that sat on the drum machine and pieced it all together. Then me and Puffy helped Biggie, adding the choruses and whatever we needed to keep it flowing. Puffy doesn’t actually make beats. He doesn’t sit on the drum machine or play any instruments so we went into it saying to ourselves, “Whatever we can do to assist him with his label, if he wants to co-produce a song with us, no problem,” and that’s really how it went with that situation.

4 “Kick In The Door”

Produced by DJ Premier
DJ Premier Puff didn’t like that record. When I gave him the track he caught me on the elevator and told me, “This is not hot, Preme. I need something more blazin’, like ‘Unbelievable.’” I was like, “That shit right there is hot.” He’s like, “I need a Tunnel banger.” I said, “That’s a Tunnel banger.” He goes, “You ain’t hittin’ it like you used to.” That’s exactly what he said. I thought he was doing it just to fuck with me, because that’s when he really started traveling with security. I was like, OK, he just trying to make me feel small. But at the end of the day Puff is my man. Me and him is mad cool despite the fact that he did not like that particular track, and then when we did it I said, “I told you this shit was gonna be hot.” And Puff goes, “I told you I had to hear the lyrics first.” I was like, “Yeah, aight.”
Puffy I didn’t really like that beat at first. Once I heard Big’s lyrics on it, once I heard him rap, it made me like the beat, it made me understand where he was coming from. Because that’s the kind of relationship we had. You know, if I didn’t like something, he still had the freedom to try it. I would give him my opinion and most of the time he listened, but if he didn’t listen to it, it must have meant he really felt strongly. So this was one of those cases where he felt strongly on a joint.
Nashiem Myrick Nas said that record was for him, but when Big said, “Son, I’m surprised you run with them/I think they got cum in them, ’cause they nothin’ but dicks,” he was talking about Jeru the Damaja to Premo ’cause Jeru was going at Big and Puff and all them [with the Premier-produced “One Day”].
Lil’ Cease Big talked about Nas a little bit in that shit. It was the King of New York part, the last verse: “This goes out for those that chose to use disrespectful views on the King of NY.” That’s when Nas had that freestyle out, where he was like, “I’ll take the crown off the so-called King and lock it down.” That’s when Big had the cover of The Source, and it said, “The King of New York.” So Big was just addressing shit, but being indirect, ’cause that’s how he was with it. He wasn’t saying who he was talking about. Big was like, “I’ma address it. I’m not gonna blow it. He’s the only nigga that’s gonna know what I’m talking about.” Everybody else wouldn’t have got it, ’cause you had to really listen to the lyrics. You gotta listen to the indirect lyrics, indirect lines. Read between the lines.
Puffy Part of the song was meant for Nas but it wasn’t no real disrespectful shit, it was more like some subliminal mixtape shit. Nas was doing it. Wu-Tang was sayin’ shit on tapes. We were all sayin’ subliminal shit on tape, but it wasn’t to the point where, when we saw each other, we couldn’t give each other a pound and know that some shit was said. It wasn’t like no deep shit. It was more on some clever shit, you know? Like little clever jabs, so when you hear it, you’re like, “Ooh!” Like if you were the recipient, you would laugh at it, because it wasn’t having you all out on front street. Everybody wasn’t knowin’ about it. And you could damn near get with the person and y’all could talk about it, like, “That shit you said was kinda slick.”

5 “Fuckin’ You Tonight”

FEATURING R. KELLY
Produced by Daron Jones (of 112) and Puffy
Lil’ Cease We just got locked up again, this is when police ran in the crib and found guns and weed. Next day Puff bailed us out. We went straight out of jail to the studio—no belts, no laces in the shoes, no nothing.
D. Roc We had just got arrested, so we was like, “We fucked up. Gotta go make some money. Time to go to the studio.”
Lil’ Cease Puff told Big, “I’m up here with R. Kelly. I’m trying to get the nigga on the album. Come fuck with this nigga.” So we went straight there. R. Kelly came into the studio and Big was kicking it, talking, and the next thing you know R. Kelly was in the booth with his shirt off singing the hook to the song. Big didn’t even have his vocals. We just wanted to get this nigga’s voice on this album. The next day Big wrote the verses to it.

6 Last Day

FEATURING THE LOX
Produced by Havoc, co-produced by Puffy and Stevie J.
Jadakiss When we did “Last Days,” we were still, I wouldn’t say rookies, but we were new to the Bad Boy family. We got the call from Darren [Dean] from Ruff Ryders, our manager back then. He wanted us to go to Daddy’s House. We didn’t even know we was getting on a B.I.G. album, so when he called us to get on it, we was wild happy. We go down there, walk in, and it’s smoky—they used to have it like the Shaolin Temple. Anyway, the beat’s knocking, Junior M.A.F.I.A. was in there, and we was drinking, smoking heavy, living the dream, like, “We about to get on a song with Big!”
Puff was the overseer, but song-wise, Big could do whatever he wanted. He was like, “We just going to make a hard joint,” ’cause it wasn’t going to be a single. He just told us to do us, and let us rock. We probably took a little longer than usual, ’cause it was Big and we was probably a little nervous. But after we settled down, hit a couple of blunts, we was good.
I had a verse I wanted to use, something that I had already. I was probably being lazy. I spit it to Big and he was like, “Nah Kiss, I know you can come harder than that. Don’t use that one, make something right now.” I was like, “Damn, Big told me to do it over. I know I got to come with another one.” So I came with the joint I came with, and he was just feeling that shit crazy.
Big laid his verse last. He out-smoked everybody. Niggas was on the floor all asleep and slumped over in the booth and he went in at like six, seven in the morning, and laid some crazy shit. We finally left right when they was setting up the mic and all of that. We was tired. We was young niggas. All that weed was killing us back then.
Havoc I got a call from Puff, he asked for a record for Big and he wanted some street shit. The beat that ended up on the album wasn’t the original beat that I had done. I did a beat that Puff liked and the reel had got stolen. So I had a whole new beat. Puff co-produced it with me and then The LOX jumped on it. Puffy added like a string to it and like some weird funny sound. It was almost similar to the original beat, but the original one was way better than that. I wish that could pop up now. I had made the beat from scratch, without putting it on disc and then saving it to disc. I just recorded it straight to reel and somebody hated, and stole the reel.

7 I Love The Dough

FEATURING JAY-Z AND ANGELA WINBUSH
Produced by Easy Mo Bee
Nashiem Myrick Jigga and Big, them niggas was really battling. Both of them don’t write their rhymes down, they just say it in their heads. On the low, they was going at it. Not going at each other in the lyrics, but going at it skill-wise. It was a sight to see. It was like, “Let me see what this nigga is going to do in the booth.” You could tell they were testing each other.
Easy Mo Bee I noticed that Puff was naying a lot of my joints, like, “Nah…” Then I was checking out what they were doing and I was like, OK, so that’s the direction they’re going in. They were taking a more commercial, R&B approach. The beats were tighter and cleaner, usage of more keyboards. I came up to Puff like, “Remember this joint—Rene and Angela, ‘I Love You More?’” Puff was like, “Yo, go hook it up, nigga. I don’t want to talk about it, hook it up.” So I went and I hooked it up, drummed it up, ended up playing keyboards on the track and everything. I had no idea what Big was gonna put to it. I didn’t even know he was gonna walk last-minute in the studio and be like, “Yo, Mo, I’m doing this joint with Jigga!” I’m looking up from the equipment, like, “Word? Aight.” Big came in with Jay, and they start cross-pacing. Imagine two people, pacing back and forth, criss-crossing each other, and not looking at each other, doing their writing process in their head, mumbling to themselves, getting their lyrics right and kickin’ it with each other in between. They was taking their time. It was me, D-Dot and I don’t remember the engineer. I remember Puff came in with some fly girl. After a while Big came over to me and was like, ‘Yo, me and Jay, we gonna go out for a little while. We’ll be back.’ That night was the last time I saw Big. I waited and waited for them to come back, and it got so late, I just told D-Dot, like, “I’ma break out.” To this day, I wish I could’ve been there when Big, Jigga and Angela Winbush did them vocals and everything. They had gone and got Angela Winbush. [When I heard] Big, Jay-Z and Angela Winbush, reiterating “I Love You More” to “I Love The Dough,” I fell out. I was like, Oh man, they doing their thing. They went back and got the original girl. I know that was definitely Puff’s idea. They went and got the original artist. Have her sing the hook over, not just sing the hook over but reiterate and change the words up. I was happy with that.

8 “What’s Beef?”

Produced by Nashiem Myrick and Carlos Broady
Lil’ Cease That was supposed to be the original Bone Thugs beat. Then one day Biggie was sitting there fucking with it by himself and he put three verses together and a hook and was like, “I’ma kick this song.” It was easy to put together, but then again, Big made everything look easy. It wasn’t really about nobody in particular. It’s just explaining to niggas what real beef is. He was talking about a real beef when your family and your kids ain’t safe. He was putting it down on a real gangsta street level on that song, not just that regular thug-level shit. When you’re going to war with a nigga that’s dangerous and you dangerous—that’s the type of situation you gotta worry about. It was a real uppity-up street record.

9 “B.I.G. Interlude”

Produced by Biggie and D-Dot
Samples Schoolly-D’s “PSK (What Does It Mean)”
Schoolly-D I knew B.I.G. was going to do “PSK” justice. He was one of my favorite rappers. I think as flow goes, the world misses Biggie. The thing is, younger cats were coming up to me after my shows like, “Yeah, you doing Biggie’s song.” I’m like, “What the fuck are you talking about?!”

10 “Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems”

FEATURING PUFFY AND MA$E
Produced by Stevie J. and Puffy
Stevie J. Ma$e came to me in the studio one day with this “I’m Comin’ Out” sample. He’s like, “When you gonna use this right here? Either my album, Puff album or Big album?” So we laid the track first but nobody knew who was gonna get it. And then when Big came with the “B-I-G P-O-P-P-A!” What!? That was Big’s joint. Everybody felt that.

11 “Niggas Bleed”

Produced by Nashiem Myrick, Carlos Broady, Puffy and Stevie J.
Nashiem Myrick I think this was done after ’Pac died. I did that in Daddy’s House. This is one of the songs that Big took a while on. After he did the first verse, he waited for a while, and came back and did the rest.
Carlos Broady Actually, that was a joint that we jacked. I had to play it over. I’m not telling [the name of the record we sampled]. I don’t think that joint was cleared.

12 “I Got A Story To Tell”

Produced by Buckwild, co-produced by Chucky Thompson and Puffy
Buckwild Big picked beats on vibe, and he was looking for beats to fit into the album. Big was the type of dude where there could be 50 people in the room and you think he wouldn’t be listening. You’d play him 50 beats and you’d think he wasn’t paying attention, ’cause he’s sitting there smoking and zoning out. And then at the end, he’d be like, I want number 12, and put number 30 on a tape.
The song was done, and everyone was telling me the song was incredible. That was all I kept hearing. But we had big problems with the sample. It almost didn’t make the album. Working with Puff, it was a blessing that he had people who could come in and get him around the sample issues. Chucky [Thompson], being an excellent musician, he replayed it and found the exact same sound. Chuck just had to change one or two notes. If I played the original and I played the sample, there’s nothing really different.
Chucky Thompson Puff played me songs, trying to get me amped. He played me “I Got A Story To Tell,” and I just loved it. But him and Harve said they can’t use it because of a problem with a sample. I knew what was needed. It was the night of the Grammys. So I went straight from the Grammys to Daddy’s House, and I’m in there with a tuxedo just trying to finish up, ’cause they was wrapping the album up. Puff really didn’t understand what I was doing. I think the pressure was on him. He was like, “We’re just going to scrap the song.” I told him to just relax. Just leave the room, go pressure your ass somewhere else. Let me deal with this.
I liked the original way Buckwild done it. All we had to do was take a piece out, which in the original sample was really just the harp part. I knew if I could get it to the point where it’s unrecognizable, we were good. So I went in, grabbed the guitar and started filling in the pieces. I took the same melodies. I just changed a few of the instruments. I moved it from harp to the guitar, put a little bit of harp in there, but anybody that knows that original record is probably scratching their head, like, “How the hell did he…?”
D-Dot I could be wrong, but I’ve never heard a rapper rap through a story—rap you a story and then tell you the whole story again without rapping it. In “I Got A Story To Tell” Big tells you the story about how he met this chick. She was wild, he went to the crib not knowing that she’s fucking with this basketball guy. The basketball player guy comes home, and in order to get out of there, Big had to pretend he was robbing her. So it looks like she’s getting robbed as opposed to having sex with Big. Then after he finishes the story, the beat plays on and then he goes back and tells you exactly what he rapped about, in case you didn’t catch it, like he’s telling it to his boys. That’s the creative part that I’d never seen anyone do.

13 “Notorious Thugs”

FEATURING LAYZIE, KRAYZIE AND BIZZY BONE
Produced by Stevie J. and Puffy
Puffy Big understood how important the Midwest and the South were at that time. He loved Bone Thugs. Being that he really liked melodies, he really liked Bone Thugs.
Krayzie Bone Puff just called up one day while we were out in California, “Come by the studio tonight.” So we went. As soon as we walked in, Big was like, “What y’all eating, drinking and smoking?” It was a shock how down-to-earth he was. Nigga used to floss in his raps big-time, but when you met him he was a real humble dude. There were a lot of things that he wanted to know about us and about our flows. He just wanted to know how we came about doing our style and how we did our vocals. He was watching us do our parts like, “Goddamn, y’all niggas are crazy.”
Layzie Bone I came with a couple ounces of herb, and about 15 minutes into the session, Biggie had it in his hand [laughs]. I’m like, “This nigga just gangstered me for my weed!” But I ain’t say nothing because it’s cool. When Biggie did our style, that’s when Bone received respect for our shit. It was like the whole industry never gave us our Ps. But Biggie was telling us that whole night in the studio like, “Y’all just came in and laid it down so fast. Y’all niggas are amazing.” He was marveling off of us. And we telling him how much love we had for him.
D. Roc That dude Layzie was passed out in the truck. Like they ordered a case of Hennessy, drinking it by themselves. He was drunker than everybody and everybody was like, “This nigga is gonna fuck up our whole night.” When it was his go, I went and tapped on the window. His face was on the glass—slobbing, knocked out. I tapped. He walked straight out the car, into the booth, did his verse in one take and went straight back into the joint and passed out again.
Stevie J. After Bone Thugs went in there and ripped it, Big took it home for a minute. He was like, “I ain’t laying mine. I got to wait. This style ain’t what I’m used to.”
Lil’ Cease The Bone Thugs shit, nobody could be in the room [when Big was recording his verse] for that. He really wanted to sit there and master that shit, ’cause he knew he was about to do something different, and whatever came out the studio was gonna be so, so new.

14 “Miss U”

Produced by Kay-Gee
Kay-Gee I approached them. I had a demo idea. “Missing You” by Diana Ross, that’s what I was working with. It’s replayed, not sampled. I always liked that record and thought one day it would be hot over some hard drums. My man wrote the hook and put it together. He put the words down and we demo-ed it. It was specifically for Biggie. Then I put a call in to Puff. I had to track him down. I sent it to them, and Puff called us and said, “Big loved it! He definitely wants to do that record, but I wanna put 112 on it. Do you have a problem with 112 doing it instead of your man?” It wasn’t a problem.
Lil’ Cease The song was about O. That was Big’s man, somebody Big used to hang with every day. He got caught up in the hood. He got killed in a store in Brownsville [Brooklyn], not too far from where we was from. He got shot twice in the chest in a store.

15 “Another”

FEATURING LIL’ KIM
Produced by Stevie J. and Puffy
Stevie J. That song was funny, ’cause they was beefing for real. Kim was talking wild shit. Big was like, “Fuck you, bitch.” And she was like, “Fuck you too, nigga.” You hear all that spitting? That was real right there. They was really going through some things at the time.
Lil’ Kim We had a big-ass fight. I had heard about him and some girl. We were talking about what happened, and all of a sudden, next thing you know, I’m going at him like this [punches the air]! And my friend Mo is trying to grab me, and D. Roc got in the middle. But we’re just going at it. And I hit Biggie so hard. And he was on crutches, so I kicked his crutch on the floor!
I said, “You have to stay because I might need you to help me with my lines.” And he was like, “I’m not helpin’ you. Fuck. You gonna tell me how you fuckin’ feel. I always let out my feelings and you gonna do it too. So I’ll hear it when it’s done.”
I always wanted him to treat me like a baby. I was real spoiled and I wanted him to be with me 24/7. I wanted him in the studio. At that time, I didn’t like being in the studio with Puff by myself, because he’s a pain in the ass! Biggie knew how I worked, so he would let me do my thing—sit in the back and check on me every half hour or every hour. Puffy comes by every five minutes! “You got something? Lemme hear.” I’m like, “I’m trying to create here. I can’t with you all on my back!”
A lot of the lyrics were true. I had to go to court for Big when he had that case in Camden, New Jersey. You know, some promoter said Big beat him up, so I had to go to court and testify for him and hold him down. I was really mad as shit! I had caught Big fuckin’ a girl—like in action. And I was sick! And I had just bailed him out of jail that day, too!
After I did the song, I didn’t see him. I think I maybe saw him one time before he left for LA.

16 “Going Back To Cali”

Produced by Easy Mo Bee
Easy Mo Bee I always wanted to do something with Zapp’s “More Bounce To The Ounce.” I wanted LA’s attention. There was a lot of tension, East Coast/West Coast. My manager at the time was from LA. He was like, “Look, in LA, at the block parties and house parties, when ‘More Bounce’ came on, that was the joint that made everybody go crazy. That was always the LA anthem.” You got this East Coast/West Coast tension bullshit, and I felt that maybe through music or a beat, anything that gets everybody on one accord, or in harmony…
I was in the car by myself, listening to the radio. I think I was listening to 98.7 Kiss and I think they threw [“More Bounce”] on as an old joint. I’m riding in the car just zoning, like I never heard it before. I was talking to myself in my head, like, “You ain’t never did anything with that. The reason why you ain’t never used it before is because too many people already used it.” But everybody had basically looped it. Nobody ever chopped the record up as if it was “Funky President.” So I had an idea to make the drums travel the same way that the record normally goes, but have the bass line doing something totally different.
When they gave me back the finished song, they were like, “Yo, you ain’t hear that shit? Big destroyed your shit. “When I heard, “I’m going, going/Back, back/To Cali, Cali,” I said, “Awww shit, man! What y’all doing?” I felt like, are we starting trouble here? Because at that time, there’s two different ways you could’ve took, “I’m Going Back To Cali.” You could take it like, “I’m going back there to run shit,” or you can take it like how he expressed it in the record, for the women and the weed. Basically, if you listen to the record, it’s not negative in any respect. But just the title… I ain’t gonna front, it scared me a little bit. I was like, Yo, is this the healthy thing to do right now?
Puffy Everybody always feared when we would go to California, and have problems, and we were very conscious of it, but we were trying to make it positive. That was just saying that we was going back to have a good time. He was saying he had love for Cali. Just because he had a problem with one person, he wasn’t gonna start saying he didn’t like all of California.

17 “Ten Crack Commandments”

Produced by DJ Premier
Samples Chuck D from “Shut ’Em Down”
Premier We laid it down, and the ill thing was Snoop was there and so was Daz—and this was during the beef time. They was there chillin’, but it was all love. To make a long story short: on “Ten Crack Commandments” Big went in there and did the vocals and the only thing that Big instructed me to do besides what was already laid down was, “Every time I say number one, number two, number three, take that Chuck D scratch and scratch it with me saying the number.” I said, No problem. I did that, it came out to be another hit. I think it’s one of the best records he ever made. As soon as he was done with the vocals he goes, “Premier, I did it. I did it. I’m the greatest!” And that was the last time I ever saw him.
It was the fact that it was called “Ten Crack Commandments.” Chuck’s not into that. He doesn’t want his voice affiliated with anything that involves drug use or drinking alcohol, sex or whatever. So they came after me and Biggie’s estate, saying that basically we violated in the fact that we used him in a song that condoned drug use. I didn’t look at it that way, because, to me, that record was to cats in the street. So, to wrap that up, I told him—this is after the fact that Big had passed already, and [his death] was still fresh—I told Chuck, ’cause I was on tour with him, I was like, “Yo Chuck, why don’t you be easy on that? Because I feel like, why should we have to go through this when Big is dead and he’s not here to defend this lawsuit. You gonna put his mother through it? I don’t think that’s spiritually fair.” He said, “You know what? If it gets out of hand with everything, I’ll dead it.” I said, “OK, fine.” He never deaded it. I found Chuck one day around my neighborhood that I live in now. He happened to tap me on my shoulder, he was with his kids and I got into it with him a little bit. I never spoke to him again and I started kind of having a little hate for him to a certain degree. I felt like he was a hypocrite. I would never sue a dead man, especially Big. I thought that was spiritually wrong, especially for what he stands for. Because I love Chuck D as a lyricist, a performer and a writer and as the head of Public Enemy. I love what he represents, and I felt like that was a foul on the fact that he couldn’t let a man’s death override a lawsuit. I’d rather it be all on my back than have to go sue a dead man’s estate. It put a big dent in the rap game. But I saw Chuck at Jam Master Jay’s wake, and we spoke and we got everything behind us now.

18 “Playa Hater”

Produced by Puffy and Stevie J.
Stevie J. “Playa Hater” was done with Ron Grant from the Blue Angel band. The studio was located at 321 west 44th, but the Blue Angel [strip club] was right next door. There was a band that used to play there, a whole bunch of hot brothers, they just was nice. I was like, “Y’all wanna record something with me?” Me and Puff brought ’em right upstairs and we did it like in one take. The crazy thing was Big singing. He wanted to do a whole album of ballads. He wanted to call it Big Ballads.
Lil’ Cease That was us in the joint. We high and we singing it, and we playing the vocals. And Puff come and changed the whole shit. That was some bullshit. When we heard it on the album we’re like, “This nigga done erased all over our shit.” Puff used to fight for a lot of shine. He wanted to be famous.

19 “Nasty Boy”

Produced by Puffy and Stevie J.
Stevie J. We had an issue with that song. We used the Vanity 6 “Nasty Girl” sample. Me and Puff took a trip to see Prince and he wouldn’t let us use it. That’s why I just got on the live bass and did some funky original-sounding thing on top.

20 “Sky’s The Limit”

FEATURING 112
Produced by Clark Kent
Clark Kent One day we were in New York so Big could record some vocals on “Who Shot Ya?” Then we went back to meet the bus and I had a tape full of tracks. He was going, “OK, that’s for Junior M.A.F.I.A., that’s for Junior M.A.F.I.A., that’s for Junior M.A.F.I.A….” That’s how he picked all the tracks for Junior M.A.F.I.A. right off that tape. Then he goes, “This is for me.” I was like, “Man, you ain’t doing an album for a year and a half, two years.” He was like, “I don’t care—just hold it. It’s for me.” I had to tell him Akinyele wanted the track, too. He was like, “This is for me.”

21 “The World Is Filled…”

FEATURING TOO $HORT, PUFFY AND CARL THOMAS
Produced by D-Dot and Puffy
Carl Thomas At the time, I hadn’t officially signed with Bad Boy yet. Puffy and I were still negotiating. “The World Is Filled…” really helped me make up my mind as far as where I wanted to be. I was just really proud of that when it was done. It was something that Big loved, and when he saw me, he let me know it. That was one of the biggest accolades that I could receive…
Me, being from the Midwest, I used to watch my uncles in the game and different pimp characters in the neighborhood. It’s funny, the chorus that I wrote, “The world is filled with pimps and hoes…,” was actually part of a poem that I wrote in study hall in the tenth grade. I was 15 years old.

22 “My Downfall”

FEATURING DMC
Produced by Nashiem Myrick, Carlos Broady and Puffy
Puffy That was me. That was my anger. I was angry about the whole situation and about everything that was going on in hip-hop surrounding us. There were people against us in my own area, a lot of people adding fuel to the fire. I felt like a lot of it had stemmed from jealousy and there were people really praying and hoping that we would get killed. There were rumors. You know there were rumors about “Big got shot” or “Puff got shot” floating around before anything really happened. People would be looking at us like, Y’all really in some beef, but like really hoping that something would happen. So that’s why the song said “Pray for my downfall.” That joint was blatant, that was like for everybody and everything and was a real emotional song.
Nashiem Myrick Carlos had that track in Trinidad and the way Big rocked it, the beat sounds crazy because it sounds like a Jamaican beat on it. That’s the way Big flowed on it. He didn’t count the snare or something. The way he purposefully flowed on it sounds like it was on three beats instead of four beats. Stevie, he came in and did the overdubs and that sounded crazy. Puff got some vocalist in. Then I brought DMC in to do the hook, ’cause Big wanted the hook to be “Pray and pray for my downfall.” They wanted to get someone to scratch it. I got Clue to scratch it but it didn’t sound right ’cause the record interfered with it. So I just got DMC himself to come in and do the vocals.
DMC P. Diddy called me up and asked me to do this part. It was taken from Run-DMC’s “Together Forever”—the part where I said, “MCs have the gall, to pray and pray for my downfall.” At first I thought they wanted me to come there just so they could sample from the original record. But they were like, “Nah D, we want you to do it over.” When that record came out, it was the biggest thing in the world for me. It made me big as a fuck. It made me relevant to today’s kids. Everywhere I went, it was like, “Yo, DMC’s on Big’s album.”

23 “Long Kiss Goodnight”

Produced by RZA
Lil’ Cease That was a one-nighter. That was about ’Pac. He had some shit at the beginning of that though, nobody heard it, on the reel. We had to change it. It was a little too much. I can’t remember what Big said about him, but it was terrible. It couldn’t make it. He didn’t want to do it. He had some fire. But he didn’t want to make it too much. He just wanted to address it and to let nigga know, “I know what’s going on, and I could get wreck if I want to.” Like, “If I really wanted to get on ya niggas, I could.”
Puffy Naaah. It was just some MC lyrics. I know people wanna have their imagination, but it was just lyrics. You’re hearing it from the horse’s mouth. I would tell the truth. If Biggie was going to do a song about 2Pac, he would have just come out with it and said his name. Their gloves were basically off. 2Pac had did “Hit ’Em Up.”
RZA Biggie was always pretty cool with me. He liked the Wu-Tang sound. He requested me to be on the album. I didn’t know if everybody in his camp agreed with it, because at one point there was a little bit of tension in the air—with Raekwon’s [Only Built 4] Cuban Linx… album and some of the statements that was made. But we was always cool with each other.
Biggie wrote the verse after his accident. At first we had Cappadonna doing the hook, talking a lot of shit. In the beginning, you can hear Cappadonna. Then Puff did his thing at the end. I didn’t know it was going to be there but I know how they work. I wasn’t in the studio when they did that. I went in a couple of weeks after he did the verse. They wanted to mix it themselves, but they didn’t even know where to put things at. I had so many sounds in there. They didn’t know what the fuck I was thinking about.
We had about 10 basic musical elements on that track. At the end he’s talking about everybody was fucking with them at that time. He could have even been talking about me [laughs], ’cause there was some cuts at Biggie on the Cuban Linx… album.

24 “You’re Nobody (’Til Somebody Kills You)”

Produced by Stevie J. and Puffy, co-produced by DJ Enuff
Background vocals by Faith Evans
Stevie J. The Rev. Hezekiah Walker comes in while we’re fixing the hook on “You’re Nobody (’Til Somebody Kills You).” I was laughing my ass off. We go to his church, me and Puff.
That song was Big singing the hook. He was like, “I got this hook… [sings] ‘You’re nobody…’” Big was not there that particular day Faith was there. She was like, “What I gotta sing?” Puff was like, [sings] “You’re nobody ’til somebody kills you.” But it was just how both of them sang on that track together—husband and wife. That was sexy, right?

source

Notorious B.I.G.: Modern Day Griot by Khalif ‘Ras’ Williams

What is a Griot?

A griot (English pronunciation: /ˈɡri.oʊ/, French pronunciation: [ɡʁi.o], with a silent t) or jeli (djeli or djéli in French spelling) is a West African poet, praise singer, and wandering musician, considered a repository of oral tradition. As such, they are sometimes also called bards. According to Paul Oliver in his book Savannah Syncopators, “Though [the griot] has to know many traditional songs without error, he must also have the ability to extemporize on current events, chance incidents and the passing scene. His wit can be devastating and his knowledge of local history formidable.” Although they are popularly known as ‘praise singers’, griots may also use their vocal expertise for gossip, satire, or political comment.

Griots today live in many parts of West Africa, including Mali, the Gambia, Guinea, Western Sahara and Senegal, and are present among the Mande peoples (Mandinka, Malinké, Bambara, etc.), Fulɓe (Fula), Hausa, Songhai, Tukulóor, Wolof, Serer, Mossi, Dagomba, Mauritanian Arabs and many other smaller groups. The word may derive from the French transliteration “guiriot” of the Portuguese word “criado,” which in turn means “servant.”

On this day May 21^st, 1973 Christopher George Latore Wallace was born in Brooklyn N.Y. This editorial is written in celebration of one of my favorite emcees of all time, Biggie[1]. Notorious B.I.G. exploded upon on the scene with his debut solo track Party and Bullshit in 1993. For New York youth Ready to Die was THE album that told of the true story of the untamed chaotic cauldron of tension, poverty, corruption and crime New York was in the 1980’s and early 90’s. The generation Biggie was born into was that of what I dub Hip Hop’s, “Golden Age Babies” aka Generation X[2]. This generation saw the last of pre Crack Era New York and lived NYC’s transition into Hell on Earth during the worst drug epidemic in U.S. history. Biggie’s rhymes on Things Done Changed, is a snapshot of how peaceful life used to be before crack came to town. He also speaks of a time when one could have a fist fight instead of a gun fight and live to fight another day. This track in my opinion helps to seal his place in history as one of the great story tellers or in this case griots/historians of our generation:

Remember back in the days, when niggaz had waves
Gazelle shades and corn braids
Pitchin’ pennies, honeys had the high top jellies
Shootin’ Skelly, motherfuckers was all friendly

Loungin’ at the barbecues, drinkin’ brews
With the neighborhood crews, hangin’ on the avenues
Turn your pagers to nineteen ninety three
Niggaz is gettin’ smoked G, believe me

Talk slick, you get your neck slit quick
‘Cause real street niggaz ain’t havin’ that shit
Totin’ techs for rep, smokin’ blunts in the project
Hallways, shootin’ dice all day

Wait for niggaz to step up on some fightin’ shit
We get hype and shit and start lightin’ shit
So step away with your fist fight ways
Motherfucker, this ain’t back in the days
But you don’t hear me though

No more cocoa leavio, one, two, three
One, two, three, all of this to me is a mystery
I hear you motherfuckers talk about it
But I stay seein’ bodies with the motherfuckin’ chalk around it

And I’m down with the shit too
For the stupid motherfuckers wanna try to use Kung-Fu
Instead of a Mac-10 he tried scrappin’
Slugs in his back and that’s what the fuck happens
When you sleep on the street

Little motherfuckers with heat want
To leave a nigga six feet deep
And we comin’ to the wake
To make sure the cryin’ and commotion
Ain’t a motherfuckin’ fake

Back in the days, our parents used to take care of us
Look at ‘em now, they even fuckin’ scared of us
Callin’ the city for help because they can’t maintain
Damn, shit done changed

If I wasn’t in the rap game
I’d probably have a key knee deep in the crack game
Because the streets is a short stop
Either you’re slingin’ crack rock or you got a wicked jump shot

Shit, it’s hard being young from the slums
Eatin’ five cent gums, not knowin’ where your meals comin’ from
And now the shit’s gettin’ crazier and major
Kids younger than me, they got the Sky Grand Pagers
Goin’ outta town, blowin’ up

Six months later all the dead bodies showin’ up
It make me wanna grab the nine and the shottie
But I gotta go identify the body

Damn, what happened to the summertime cookouts?
Every time I turn around, a nigga gettin’ took out
Shit, my momma got cancer in her breast
Don’t ask me why I’m motherfuckin’ stressed, things done changed

As a result of what he witnessed and as a participant in facilitating the drug habits of his neighbors, he chose as an artist to articulate the acute capacity for self destruction the African American male is capable of simply because of an intergenerational enforcement of poverty on the black family by the continuing legacy of racism and classism embedded in American society. What also informs this behavior is the unresolved psychosis that lingers as a result of the legacy of enslavement which still plagues people of African descent.[3] Big in his lyrical narratives chose to make himself an active participant or to tell a story in third person depending on the narrative other times he would apply his genius to convincingly playing multiple characters as in his incredible track Gimme the Loot off of his debut album Ready to Die.

The genius of Big lay in his ability to be brief yet descriptive in his attention to detail when discussing different topics all while being incredibly funny, charming and exuding the masculine bravado some men only wish to have. Big also took his physical stature as a big and tall man at 6 feet 4inches and over 275 pounds to recreate his fans impression of what sexy is. He made it so no matter how dark or fat a black man was he can still “feel” himself and get others to feel and love him too.

In the Documentary Notorious BIG: Bigger Than Life USC professor Dr. Todd Boyd gives us some perspective on how Biggie took what other people would perceive as negative[4] and turned it into a positive, putting it out there that he was a “heartthrob never, black and ugly as ever” yet still stayed “Coogi down to the socks.”

Understanding the historical vilification of the Black image Biggie’s skill at embodying the change in perception made him an ambassador for the sexiness of Black Manhood. We have all had to deal with the tarnishing of the black image to the detriment of of racial harmony since the founding of America as a nation. This debilitating phenomena is still a reality as evidenced in the portrayals of President Obama as a monkey on several occasions as well and the Imus controversy and much more. (Please see my essay entitled- Perception is Everything: The Historical Desecration of the Black Image for details)

In The Intro of Ready to Die, Big is in a conversation with his man and they’re planning to rob the train they were riding on the NYC Subway. This was something rooted in fact during the late 80’s and early 90’s New York City at that time had hundreds of home grown gangs crews and cliques[5] from all boroughs making names for themselves through their criminal exploits. These gangs made the evening news regularly like The Decepts, Low Lifes, Autobots, and many others. Big not only gave shouts to many of them in the liner notes of his first album but he told stories that match the crimes committed not only by himself but by some of the most notorious young thugs and hustlers in New York City history. These gangs were kids we went to junior high and high school with. So Big knew some of them. New York was very much like the movie, City of God as far as how young the players were in the drug game, the sheer brutality of how they killed and assaulted. As it has been documented some of these youth even worked for police as drug dealers and in some cases robbed drug dealers for the police and then resell the drugs they stole for police officers like in the infamous Larry Davis Case[6].

I choose to compare Biggie to Donald Goines because of his ability to lyrically interpret the laws of the concrete jungle and expose the harsh no-holds barred cruelty of the streets. The visual acuity of his multi-layered baritone flow and cadence[7] made his voice as instantly recognizable as the Blast Master KRS One. The concepts of his tracks ran the gamut of experience from the tragic like Me and My Bitch to the reasons why people hustle like Every Day Struggle. In Every Day Struggle, Big brings the humanity of a hustler into question as he states that hustlers themselves don’t wish to be a menace to society but how the forced poverty. The disenfranchisement created by the daily African American experience and how an inability to adequately care for your child can breed cold hearted predators. These are predators we blame for a circumstance they were born into, in most cases intergenerational with very few options to leave the abject poverty and despair behind. It is this quandary that forces the choices of these children that live fast and die young. The internal pain one can only anesthetize with brew and blunts:

“Everyday Struggle” verse 1

[Hook]
I don’t wanna live no mo’
Sometimes I hear death knocking at my front do’
I’m living everyday like a hustle
Another drug to juggle, another day another struggle

I know how it feels to wake up fucked up
Pockets broke as hell, another rock to sell
People look at you like you’re the user
Selling drugs to all the losers mad Buddha abuser
But they don’t know about the stress-filled day
Baby on the way mad bills to pay
That’s why you drink Tanqueray
So you can reminisce and wish
You wasn’t living so devilish s-shit
I remember I was just like you
Smoking blunts with my crew
Flipping oldies 62′s
‘Cause G-E-D was it B-I-G, I got P-A-I-D
That’s why my mom hates me
She was forced to kick me out, no doubt
Then I figured out Nick’s went for twenty down south
Packed up my tools for my raw power move
Glock nineteen for casket and flower moves
Four drunks trying to stop my flow
And what they don’t know will show on the autopsy
Went to see papi, to cop me a brick
Asked for some consignment and he wasn’t trying to hear it
Smoking mad Newports ’cause I’m doing court for an assault
That I caught in Bridge Port, New York
Catch me if you can like the ginger bread man
You better have your gat in hand
‘Cause man

I don’t wanna live no mo’
Sometimes I hear death knocking in my front do’
I’m living everyday like a hustle
Another drug to juggle, another day another struggle

In an interview a few years ago rapper/actor Will Smith said Big’s first album could be used as a psychological study into the psychopathology of the black male personality. In that statement Will Smith was alluding to Big’s ability to lyrically capture how one must strip all semblance of morality and decency in order to commit crimes on a regular basis and deal with the mental scars of the sins one has to perpetrate against one own people by selling drugs and or robbing and pillaging people one grew up with. He was able to show the moral internal struggle making daily decisions to be a parasite on one’s own community then to be able to face your mother at night who assumed you went to school that day. He also had to give her a semblance of normalcy by lying about your own whereabouts so one isn’t caught by their parents.

Gangs, crews, posses and cliques are like the military in that they strip one of their own egoistic self-centered personality and replaces it with a mentality that works towards the financial growth and power of the gang. That is part of the meaning behind being beaten in and also being put to the test by “puttin’ in work”. This is the same tactic that the military uses when one goes through boot camp. The verbal abuse is meant to strip you of your self centered ego and once through physical training and mental conditioning that goal is accomplished. They replace it with a group mentality that operates on command as an expert trained killer to go where the President commands and fellow his superiors’ orders. Documentary programs like American Gangster on BET and Gangland on the History Channel have reported many times about the hierarchy and social organization of the gang. They interview experts in order to expose what society calls dumb criminals in organizations that turn out to be well organized and compared to fortune 500 companies by law enforcement  in figurative terms like Mc Donald’s of Crack etc.

The Notorious B.I.G captured almost every angle of hood life for a young black male of the times. Ready to Die is a literal time capsule of pre-Giuliani, pre-World Trade Center terrorist attack New York City. It is a New York that seems like a distant era for those now caught in the cross fire of West Coast gangs transported to an unprepared New York landscape. He speaks of the old New York when one could where blue or red clothes without the possibility of being shot. Or when bandanas were worn s a part of ones attire because they matched your outfit not because they represented a set.

By his second album Life After Death, lyrically Big shed his street corner hustler mentality, went back to basics and came with a double album that was one of the most diverse and well compiled Hip Hop albums ever recorded. In this album his approach was you can take the man out the hood but you can’t take the hood out the man. He told stories from the point of view of a young Brooklynite who was now as a result of success having more “high end” experiences with women and the debauchery that comes behind closed doors in the skit before Nasty Boy. That skit was funny as hell but kind of lets you know that the people most at the bottom always strive to be like those in high society thinking they are different. But they are like all humans just the same and in some cases even more debased in their habits and rituals than any person in the hood.

Life After Death also dealt with the issue of trying to tackle death threats and maneuver a world which is hazardous to your health as well as maintain the persona that the regular calls threatening your life weren’t having an affect on your psyche. It also tackled issues of how money changes relationships between friends and family in Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems. What’s Beef addressed issues he was having with other artists and how he overstood the nature of beef to be. It was hauntingly descriptive and telling especially after how he met his own end.

Niggas Bleed really was an undercover ode to the situation with Pac. He was letting people know he is not scared of anyone simply because we’re ALL human when it is said and done and we all meet the same finality of death in this life. Big to me in his actions kept his peace in the situation for such an extended period of time taking the more mature route to try and get past the situation than Pac did taunting and harassing him publicly and in his art. Big in this song made clear his silence wasn’t because of fear but because of his own resolve in his innocence as far as the Quad City shooting of Tupac was concerned.

Sky’s the Limit was the track that told his story from childhood to his graduation to street education the streets to his coming of age as a man in this his ode to success. This track was an homage to his graduation from a youth that was Ready to Die to one that grew up, was mature and looking forward to life as a father and business man. It is one of my favorite songs on the album because it was so revealing and so personal in his first person narrative style. Big in this and many of his story driven tracks is on par with Slick Rick in his greatness as a story teller, Hip Hop aural historian and griot. If only he had more time to explore this talent…

Though Big was touted as a pariah by the news and media at times I know two people both who worked at Bad Boy Records in the 1990’s and both knew Big and both told me personally he was a gentle giant, very laid back and funny as hell. He was also not the man to mess with either. Like the proverbial Gemini he was he had two sides to his personality something that ALL people have. That is the good and the bad side. Along with those two sides come many facets for those two mediums of expression of the personality. Big chose to let it all hang out from the depression in Suicidal Thoughts to the fun of success in Hypnotize. Big let us into his private world and exposed parts of himself many would not be brave enough to let others see. He also taught the world NEVER to judge a book by its cover because you may be overlooking a diamond in the rough.

I am sure that teacher that told Big he would be nothing but a Garbage Man[8] never thought such a brilliant mind( he could not only run a drug business but he was also a brilliant artist) in his midst who very early in his career could write a volume of lyrical material in his head never putting a pen to pad. Something many up and coming rap artists try to emulate for the accolades that comes along with that talent for artists like Jay-Z and Kanye West who are exceptional at it. Some rappers are naturally gifted at it and there are many others who do it but really need to pick up a pen because of the lack of quality and coherence of their rhymes. Big was an innovator of lyrical style and very brave and revealing in his lyrical content. Beyond all the things Big was he was most importantly a consummate Hip Hopper and to take himself from the harsh place of his origins to the top of the Rap Game as one of it’s and music’s most celebrated lyricists makes him a Non Domesticated Thinker. Happy Birth Day Big Poppa and most of all thanks for telling the story of those who seldom get a chance to have theirs told.