“Ready to Die” by The Notorious B.I.G.

A genuine 10/10 turns 30.

Sep 11, 2024

Hello! 😊👋

Welcome to a new edition of the Best Music of All Time newsletter!

Today’s music pick celebrates the 30th anniversary of a GOAT hip-hop album candidate from one of the genre’s most talented practitioners.

Genre: Hip-Hop, Gangsta Rap

Label: Bad Boy

Release Date: September 13, 1994

Vibe: 👑

When you mention Ready to Die, the studio debut from the Notorious B.I.G., in conversation with other hip-hop heads, it’s usually a starting point for a quick transition into the GOAT conversation. He was the greatest rapper of all time, this record is the best East Coast rap LP ever made, and so on. But what those discussions sometimes lack is precise language regarding the “why.”

Why is Biggie Smalls still the emcee by which countless others are judged from a talent perspective? Why is this record one of (if not the) gold standard for the kind of vivid storytelling that, when executed at this level, makes hip-hop a singular vehicle for personal expression?

Why, after 30 years, does this album still go as hard as it does?

Those were the questions I wrestled with in preparation for this write-up. Like Purple Rain or Paul’s Boutique, it would’ve been easy to coast through an analysis based on reputation alone. After all, we’re talking about an album that’s been certified 6x Platinum in the US, produced two Top 40 singles on the Hot 100, was nominated for a Grammy, and, earlier in 2024, was entered into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, and/or aesthetically significant.” Commercially, it’s an undeniable force.

What’s gone somewhat underappreciated in mainstream discourse is how highly Ready to Die is regarded by hip-hop heads uninterested (or, in some cases, upset by) any crossover potential. For this faction of Biggie’s audience, the tales of drug deals gone awry and robberies at gunpoint resonated on a much deeper level. As The Source stated in their four-and-a-half-mic review from 1994, “Whether the street essence is your reality or whether you just like feeling hard through someone else's stories, Biggie will captivate [you].”

Incredibly, Wallace nearly missed recording Ready to Die altogether. In Justin Tinsley’s book, It Was All a Dream: Biggie and the World That Made Him (an indispensable read for hip-hop fans), he describes how resistant the rapper initially was to leaving the drug hustle behind and devoting his full attention to music.

Here’s an excerpt from Tinsley’s NPR interview summarizing the anecdote:

“So Biggie's demo tape had become kind of like an urban legend because so many people heard it, and so many people wanted other people to hear it. And it ultimately got to [Sean “Puffy” Combs] at Uptown, who had read the ‘Unsigned Hype’ column in The Source, and he heard that demo tape, and he was like, ‘There's no way this dude is that great at rapping. This has to be heavily edited.’ So ... Biggie [comes] to Puffy's office, and at one point in the sit down, Puffy was like, "Hey, I want to hear you rap," and Biggie raps. And he blows Puffy's mind away. ...
“So [Puffy] tells Biggie right there, ‘I can get you a record out by the summer.’And Biggie's like, ‘Yeah, sure, whatever. But until that moment comes where you offer me a contract and I actually see real money, I have to go down to North Carolina, I have to go back to the block, I have to go back to Brooklyn and basically sell [drugs] until you come through with your word.’
“So the crazy story is Biggie is down in Raleigh, North Carolina because that's where he went to hustle. He's in his house and Puffy calls him in. Puffy is mad: ‘I told you not to go back down there. […] I told you I was going to get your money. I'm looking at the check right now.’ […] Big toys with the idea of staying in Raleigh, but he ultimately decided to get on a bus and head back to New York. And, not four or five hours later, the police raided the [trap] house that Biggie lived in, and arrested everybody and took them to jail […] That's how close we were to never hearing the Notorious B.I.G. or the name Biggie Smalls, the rapper.”

I’m not going to spend significant time litigating the influence of Bad Boy Records or, at the time of this writing, what remains of Combs’ career. However, at the time, it was clear Big and Puffy needed each other. The former wanted to break through as one of the genre’s leading voices. The latter, after tasting early success in the record business, needed a superstar to hitch his imprint’s wagons to. Both got exactly what they were looking for.

Sonically, Ready to Die grabs you by the throat in the first few seconds and doesn’t let go for 70-plus minutes. It doesn’t start with a killer beat or bar but with a birth, distilling Biggie’s origin story down to a three-minute audio mosaic of formative moments, building to the breathless crescendo of an A-train robbery that sounds like it was lifted out of a Scorsese film. It’s a bold choice but also a savvy one—establishing emotional stakes and, more importantly for Big—actual street cred. By the time “Things Done Changed” gets moving, you understand how much he’s been through at the tender age of 22.

In that first rap track, you also get a sense of the rapper’s ability to paint impressively vivid pictures with his rhymes. Its cinematic sensibility works itself into every bit of exposition, which makes for a far more compelling listening experience. Consider this stretch from the third verse of that second track: “If I wasn't in the rap game/I'd probably have a ki, 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.” It’s all rooted in visual language, transforming what could’ve been warmed-over cliches into a street-level dispatch you can see and hear in an instant.

That first third or so of the record, from “Things Done Changed” to the title track, is one of the finest stretches of any LP in hip-hop history. Biggie’s effortless flow and distinctive intonation never sound hurried or rehearsed or corrupted by industry handlers in any way. It’s unfettered confidence that the vast majority of emcees can only aspire to. But that shouldn’t obscure the spot-on production from Easy Mo Bee, the only beatmaker who worked with both the Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur. His distinctive strain of boom-bap is as timeless as it is gritty, bringing well-chosen samples from artists like James Brown (”Gimme the Loot”), Isaac Hayes (”Walk On By”), and the Ohio Players (”Ready to Die”) into the drug and violence-riddled neighborhoods where the story’s taking place. The synergy between the lyricism and instrumentals is nothing short of sublime.

Then, halfway through the record, you have the moment that elevates this record from great to an all-time classic: “Juicy.” From the Mtume beat to the endlessly quotable rags-to-riches rhymes, it set the template artists still use today to foist an underground artist upon mainstream audiences. This song also positions hip-hop’s exploding commercial potential as a parallel phenomenon to Biggie’s meteoric rise to superstardom. I’ll let you be the judge of which is the chicken and which is the egg.

For a track that’s perfect in every way, Biggie was apparently reluctant to record “Juicy” because it wasn’t hardcore enough. “Big thought it was a popcorn record,” producer Jean “Poke” Oliver told XXL in 2004. “He wanted to make all gangsta records. [He] was like, ‘Yo, [Puff] is trying to make me an opera singer.’ […] Once it became a hit, he realized: ‘These are the records I need to make.’” This observation begs another question: How many mainstream hip-hop hits did “Juicy” pave the way for? Hundreds? Thousands? That includes future BIggie chart-toppers like “Hyptonize” and “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems,” too, by the way. Music history would be much worse off without it, that’s for sure.

Let’s end off on “Who Shot Ya,” one of the hardest rap songs ever made and, if you believe Tupac’s paranoid prison confessions, the infamous diss track that escalated the East Coast-West Coast into dangerously violent territory. Biggie’s rapping is so cold it should send shivers down your spine, even when he’s dropping references to Chaka Khan and “Disco Inferno.” It’s not just that he warns his haters what fate awaits them if they cross him—he wants to look them in the eyes while the inevitable happens. He references common cracks about his weight and taste for partying before going for the metaphorical kill with lines like, “You'll die slow but calm/Recognize my face so there won't be no mistake.” It’s also the track that should’ve ended the record, but instead, we get the superfluous “Just Playing (Dreams).”

That single flaw hardly detracts from Ready to Die’s legacy, though. I’ve used this expression before writing this newsletter, but, seriously, this LP personifies the concept of “all killer, no filler.” The fact that it’s an exhilarating neo-noir that’s almost as long as a feature film makes this accomplishment even more awe-inspiring.