I remember thinking, What the hell is this? Damn, this sounds pretty good. He co-opted Bone Thugz-n-Harmony’s style. What moment on Life After Death stands out most?Įrik Parker: “Notorious Thugs” speaks to the direction of the album. That’s how you know I’m great, because I can do all of that and sound good. He’s saying, actually, you need to tell stories, make party records, be funny and be dark. Basically, he’s disrupting the idea from the ’90s that to be a great rapper you need to tell stories. “Hypnotize” is about as good an upbeat bragging record as you can get from that era. Listen to “Player Hater,”-that’s a hilarious fucking hook. Jon Caramanica: Storytelling is super important-and he’s really good at it-but he’s also good at party records. You can follow them cohesively, and they still speak in his voice. But Biggie Slick Rick’s stories seem outdated. There is no Kendrick Lamar without Biggie his songs wouldn’t gain as much traction or historical weight if Biggie hadn’t done them so well.Įrik Parker: Prior to that, people heralded Slick Rick as the greatest storyteller in rap. There are records that are so coherent, so elegantly rendered, that you almost lose track of the fact that it’s an story. Jon Caramanica: The thing about Big is he never sounds like he’s trying hard. rap at the time, but it also catered to those roots, particularly with its storytelling. Life After Death certainly transcended N.Y. This record is saying the guy who’s in charge, the number one or two, can not just be a star, but also an innovator and push boundaries. So many times innovation comes from fringes, working toward the center. But it was also the most necessary thing at the time. This is something that made people uncomfortable. No one as prominent with New York roots made a record that didn’t feel so regional. But Biggie kicked in the door and collaborated with different sounds. Regionalism starts to die.Įrik Parker: When Jay-Z put UGK on, that wasn’t an obvious choice. Biggie is saying, I like Bone Thugz-n-Harmony, Miami bass, West Coast music, so why should I not make a record that includes all of those things? Life After Death isn’t adversarial it’s inclusive. Jon Caramanica (Music critic, The New York Times): This album is vibrant, deliberate statements about hip-hop in its fullness. That’s a starting point for why it was so impactful. It’s a major puzzle piece in the unification of hip-hop. VIBE: What made Life After Death such a great musical work?Įrik Parker (Writer and producer of Time Is Illmatic): It was an adventure for an East Coast artist because this guy actually looked into different places and made an album that appeals to hip-hop fans across regions. John Kennedy, Music Editor (2009-2014) Consider this a Life After Death postmortem. And in honor of our own 20-year anniversary, we’ve rounded up Music Editors of VIBE’s past-Erik Parker (2003-2006) and Jon Caramanica (2006-2008)-to wax reflective on B.I.G.’s (second) classic. So we’re championing Big Poppa’s sophomore LP as the greatest to drop since Clinton’s first term. And while there are slight chinks (“Going Back To Cali” is symbolically significant, but sonically mediocre), Life After Death is a transformative album so diverse that its 25 songs play as fluidly as 13, setting a double-disc bar that’s tempted-yet evaded-G.O.A.T. Biggie bucked mid-’90s hip-hop’s divisive nature, shedding frequent flyer miles for Too $hort and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony features. Kelly’s most hilariously obnoxious hooks You Tonight”). Utilizing Puff Daddy’s polished ear, he parties (“Hypnotize”), slap-boxes with rival rappers (“Kick In The Door”), makes bad singing sound good (“Player Hater”), spins popcorn-worthy narratives (“Niggas Bleed”) and hosts one of R. Unlike Nas’ Illmatic or D’Angelo’s Brown Sugar, both efficient 10-track landmarks that relentlessly hone on their niche and perform flawlessly, Life After Death revealed Biggie as a master of every trade. The overweight kid from Brooklyn was the Swiss Army knife of MCs, and Life After Death is a thorough exhibition of that versatility, as the maturing 24-year-old Bad Boy toned down Ready To Die’s blustering flows while broadening his perspective beyond Bed-Stuy’s blocks. You never knew what to expect when The Notorious B.I.G.
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