“Things done changed on this side,” the sample declares, a savvy appropriation that characterized a rise in violence across coasts, and a shift in sound that B.I.G. Dre’s voice we hear between verses, dispatching from Compton. It goes unmentioned here, but hip-hop’s region of choice had changed too: New York’s first generation of rap inventors had given way to the West Coast, so it’s Dr. Life used to be about funny hairstyles, curbside games, and lounging at barbecues, he says, but “Turn your pagers to 1993,” and the story has taken an inexplicably dark turn.
Its intro maps B.I.G’s life against the sounds of various eras-’70s “Superfly,” ‘80s “Top Billin’,” and ‘90s Doggystyle-before the 21-year-old launches into “Things Done Changed,” an opening monologue that sets the chaotic scene.
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Even then, the album was a reflection: an over-the-top, fisheye union address of the city’s waning crack era, and a reeling admission that something must have gone terribly wrong for it to have happened. opened Ready to Die by complaining about changes in the city around him over 20 years ago. The thrill is a combination of fear and gall, rooted in the security that the scene will likely never repeat itself.īut there may be something habitual in New York’s craned gaze backward. Young transplants and natives alike would rather hear old tall tales than experience anything near it firsthand distinct from nostalgia, it's more like moving into a home where a murder occurred.
The lawlessness it describes-robberies at gunpoint on the A train, open-air hand-to-hand crack deals on Fulton St., shootouts with the NYPD-land unfathomably to most New Yorkers today. But the shift has fossilized a certain kind of rap album, like The Notorious B.I.G.’s debut Ready to Die, released in 1994. This is undoubtedly a good thing-entrepreneurial city teens today hustle fashion trends to ogling editors instead of baggies to scraggly addicts. Sure, there are bike messengers that peddle weed packed in plastic jars and Russian mobsters who launder money through Coney Island auto-shops, but the kind of trap-house, dope-boy, Robin Hood archetype that still carries in cities like Atlanta has been wiped clean from tri-state folklore. Not everything is so dark, though Combs' production collaborations result in some upbeat, commercial moments, and typically cop from recognizable hits: the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back" on the graphic sex rap "One More Chance," Mtume's "Juicy Fruit" on the rags-to-riches chronicle "Juicy," and the Isley Brothers' "Between the Sheets" on the overweight-lover anthem "Big Poppa." Producer Easy Mo Bee's deliberate beats do get a little samey, but it hardly matters: this is Biggie's show, and by the time "Suicidal Thoughts" closes the album on a heartbreaking note, it's clear why he was so revered even prior to his death.New York City doesn’t sell drugs anymore. The album is also sprinkled with reflections on the soul-draining bleakness of the streets - "Things Done Changed," "Ready to Die," and "Everyday Struggle" are powerfully affecting in their confusion and despair. A sense of doom pervades his most involved stories: fierce bandits ("Gimme the Loot"), a hustler's beloved girlfriend ("Me & My Bitch"), and robbers out for Biggie's newfound riches ("Warning") all die in hails of gunfire. Yet, no matter how much he heightens things for effect, it's always easy to see elements of Biggie in his narrators and of his own experience in the details everything is firmly rooted in reality, but plays like scenes from a movie. He's blessed with a flair for the dramatic, and slips in and out of different contradictory characters with ease. His raps are easy to understand, but his skills are hardly lacking - he has a loose, easy flow and a talent for piling multiple rhymes on top of one another in quick succession. Today it's recognized as one of the greatest hardcore rap albums ever recorded, and that's mostly due to Biggie's skill as a storyteller. a star, and vaulted Sean "Puffy" Combs' Bad Boy label into the spotlight as well. The album that reinvented East Coast rap for the gangsta age, Ready to Die made the Notorious B.I.G.
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