Biggie’s cinematic vision of organized crime tales play out beautifully on tracks like “What’s Beef?”, “N***as Bleed” and the opening song “Somebody’s Gotta Die”. A great amount of his best recordings from his already small (no pun intended, I swear!) catalog of work can be found here, including the huge platinum-certified #1 singles “Hypnotize” and “Mo Money Mo Problems” (featuring guest verses from Puff Daddy and Ma$e), the inspiring gold-selling third single “Sky’s The Limit” (featuring 112 on the chorus) and “Going Back To Cali” (laced by Easy Mo Bee, who produced a number of tracks on Biggie’s classic 1994 debut album, Ready To Die) the latter, which flips a neck-snapping sample of Zapp’s breakbeat/dance floor staple “More Bounce To The Ounce”, is also notable for showing love to the West Coast during the height of the infamous East/West rivalry that ultimately claimed the life of onetime friend and West Coast rap icon Tupac Shakur as well as his own. This joint fits quite well in the Mafioso rap subgenre, and Biggie (as always) is a versatile lyrical master of storytelling, concepts, humor and charisma. I’ll admit that while I don’t particularly care for a couple songs here and there, the amount of quality material on here is impressive for an album of this size and I’ve even come to appreciate the lesser tracks over time to some degree.
The double-disc set has held up incredibly well over the years, and most hip hop heads hail it as a classic. Life After Death is also one of a very select handful of hip hop albums to be certified diamond (with over 10 million copies sold!). The album title, cover and some of the lyrical content are particularly haunting in that regard, especially on the intro and the poignant album closer “You’re Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You)”. (affectionately known by everyone as Biggie Smalls) the album was completed shortly before Biggie’s tragic shooting death in Los Angeles as he was leaving a Soul Train Music Awards after-party and released a couple weeks after. Two weekends ago marked the 20th anniversary(!) of Life After Death, the posthumous second album from late, great Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, NYC hip hop heavyweight (literally!), The Notorious B.I.G.
(“You’re Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You)”) There's still plenty of the gangsta tales on Life After Death that won Biggie so much admiration on the streets, but it's the pop-laced songs that stand out as highlights.As I leave my competition, respirator styleĬlimb the ladder to success, escalator style It's perhaps Puffy himself to thank for this album's biggest hits: Mo Money Mo Problems, Hypnotize, Sky's the Limit, three songs that definitely owe much to his pop touch. Kelly, Angela Winbush, 112 - and, of course, Puff Daddy, who is much more omnipresent here than on Ready to Die, where he mostly remained on the sidelines. Plus, Biggie similarly brought in various guest rappers - Jay-Z, Lil' Kim, Bone Thugs, Too $hort, L.O.X., Mase - a few vocalists - R. Like 2Pac's All Eyez on Me from a year before, an obvious influence, Biggie's album made extensive use of various producers - DJ Premier, Easy Mo Bee, Clark Kent, RZA, and more of New York's finest - resulting in a diverse, eclectic array of songs. That's not really the case with Life After Death, however. You'd expect any album this sprawling to include some lackluster filler.
The ambitious album, intended as somewhat of a sequel to Ready to Die, picking up where its predecessor left off, sprawled across the span of two discs, each filled with music, 24 songs in all. Biggie's second long-player was a huge slab of hip hop featuring a whole range of guests and a whole load of hits.
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