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A thread on Ready To Die: A landmark in rap for generations to come
In 1991, fresh from serving a sentence in a North Carolina prison for violation of probation, Christopher Wallace takes the name Biggie Smalls and releases a demotape called âMicrophone Murdererâ.
Although he wasnât passionate about it, it fell on the ears of local DJ Mister Cee who promoted it enough so that the editor of the rap magazine The Source would put him in the Unsigned Hype column in 1992.
Puffy, at the time A&R for Uptown Records, heard the tape, invited him for a meeting and signed him to the label, where he promptly started appearing on remixes and labelmatesâ tunes. He also released Party and Bullshit as his debut single.
In early 1993, BIG dropped his moniker Biggie Smalls for The Notorious BIG and started recording songs for Ready To Die. He recorded the less radio friendly tunes such as Gimme The Loot and Machine Gun Funk, but he wasnât able to finish as Puff got fired from Uptown Records.
With Puffâs firing, BIGâs contract was void and for the moment so was his career. He went back to North Carolina to continue hustling until later that year when Puff established Bad Boy Records.
Miraculously, Puff caught wind of BIG selling drugs and sent him a ticket to NY which got to him one day before his spot in North Carolina got raided. He was subsequently signed to Bad Boy Records alongside Craig Mack and made his first appearance on the Flava In Ya Ear (Remix).
Upon his return, BIG came with the ability to compose songs off freestyles, with a smoother more confident flow than the one he was using months before. It was with this newfound technique that he would record his more well known songs such as Juicy and Big Poppa.
Although this is an album with only one feature, itâs far from a solo effort. Puffy contributed a great deal to the inclusion of the hits on the record, including most notably Juicy which he had to convince BIG to do since he didnât want to.
The concept of the album is BIGâs life from his birth to his eventual suicide, and all events that lead up to it. Itâs a sprawling exploration of both his psyche and nature, and the environment which made him the man he was at the time of composing this album.
Honesty is what ties the album together. From the highs and lows of drug dealing, him questioning his character, his resolve, his suicidal thoughts and everything else. He holds nothing from the audience and embellishes nothing, a hyper-realistic recount of life from his POV.
And above all else, he does it with unprecedented level of skill. Every barometer of rap from delivery to storytelling to flow to wordplay to just straight ingenious creativity, he had it in bundles on this LP.
I love this album because itâs not just a technical marvel, but the stories transcend the setting of 93 in Brooklyn, so much so that even I can relate to them in this day and age. It speaks to his skill and vision that itâs aged this well
End of thread. RIP to the nicest MC, and stream Ready To Die
