Product Description

Once he stepped out onto the scene as the rapper on the remix of Mary J. Blige's hit single "Real Love", many hip-hop fanatics anxiously awaited the debut of The Notorious B.I.G. a.k.a. Biggie Smalls. Their prayers were answered with READYTO DIE, fifteen tracks of uncut, hard-core, lyrically sophisticated rap all complemented by hypnotic beats supplied by the underground's most prominent producers. READY TO DIE resumes where his "Juicy" single left off, but separates itselffrom the array of hip-hop albums that don't live up to the initial hit.
Blowin' up the charts using his knowledge ofthe streets and hard bangin' snares provided by producer Easy Mo Bee, the Bedford-Stuyvesant native Notorious B.I.G. isfar from "Ready To Die". Not since the likes of Slick Rick has there been an artist so successful in the storytelling genre of rap music, creating a mental picture of life in the heads of his listeners. The up-tempo "Gimme The Loot" illustrates the hustlin' ways of a trigger-happy robbery expert stressed from the "Everyday Struggle" of life. The recurrence of the Isley Brothers tune "Between The Sheets" adds to the charm of "Big Poppa", where Biggie portrays his "player" image. No need to skip any songs, READY TO DIE is packed with hits all the way through.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #45045 in Music
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
During the Reagan era of "all-for-me" economics, MCs like Big Daddy Kane and Kool G Rap painted pictures of silky rap gangsterism inspired by movies like The Mack and Superfly. Out of the post-Reagan rubble came Notorious B.I.G.'s debut, the hustler reality trip Ready to Die (also the LP debut of beat-thief producer Sean "Puffy" Combs). Biggie still rhymes about the gold, the Moet, and the ladies, but he also reveals the casualties on the road from struggler to hustler to player. "Juicy" sets up Biggie's rags-to-riches story, but then the curtain gets pulled back with unapologetic, hardcore tracks like "Gimme the Loot" and "Machine Gun Funk". It's a funky album (just try not throwing your hands in the air when you hear "Big Poppa"), and it's a powerful album--possibly even the Mayflower of 1990s East Coast hustler rap. --Todd Levin

Customer Reviews

A must-have album for all hip hop fans
"Ready To Die" is one of a rare breed; a hip hop classic. Along with albums like Mobb Deep's "The Infamous..." and Nas's "Illmatic," it rises above the one-dimension portrayal of the thug life that so many mediocre rappers spit. Biggie raps about violence and crime on songs such as the excellent "Gimme The Loot," and being a player on "Big Poppa" and "One More Chance," but he tempers this with more poignant tunes, for example "Things Done Changed," which laments the escalation of violence in the inner cities, or "Suicidal Thoughts," where the guilt-ridden protagonist decides to end his own life. The production is tight, and thankfully isn't swamped with Puffy's karaoke tunes (unlike "Life After Death," which is a poor album), instead consisting mainly of funk-ridden head-nodders from Easy Mo Bee, Darnell Scott and the ever-amazing DJ Premier. And lyrically, what can I say? Biggie, as most people know, was a fantastic wordsmith, and this is exhibited on songs like "Warning," where a friend of Biggie's calls him to tell him that a group of thieves are headed his way: "They even heard about the crib you bought your Moms out in Florida / The fifth corridor... Call the coroner / There's gonna be a lot a slow singing, and flower-bringing / If my burglar alarm starts ringing." Biggie's flow, cadence and lyricism remain entertaining throughout, and blended with the good quality beats and the level of introspection, gives us a classic hip hop album. Unfortunately, Biggie was killed a few years ago and we will never be able to hear an album of equal quality from him. It is unlikely, in fact, that we will hear one from anybody in the near future. My advice? Buy this album.

What more can i say........
This is, and will always be the best Hip Hop debut album of all time. After the raw, uncut unground tracks like "Party & Bullshit" Biggie managed to take that raw style into a comercial world, but without forgetting his roots like many other great rappers have done. The production on this album is simply amazing and much credit must go to the then unknown Puff Daddy for keepin Biggie's beats as good as his lyrics. You can not rate this album with just 5 stars, it is beonde that, there is a track for every body on this album and every one is as good as another, but tracks that do stand out are "The What" feat Method and "Big Poppa". These are very different tracks, but you can listen to this album again and again, i have been for years and i'am still finding things i can relate to in his lyrics today. This is an album that will never date and would highly recommend this album to any East Coast Hip Hop fan as it came out at a time when Hip Hop was at it's highest point with the East-West Coast feud, where all records had to be of the highest quality. If your considering buying a Hip Hop album i would buy this album over any more recent Hip Hop album because it simply ouses quality and production when both Biggie and Puff Daddy were at a "make or break stage" of there careers. If you have't really heard Biggie before then you will class him as a lyrical God, if you think Puff Daddy has now "sold out" think of what he could be doing if Biggie was still with us today. R.I.P B.I.G, peace.

One of the best
This is just one of those albums that doesn't have a best track. They're all more or less equal in greatness, whether it's the clever story telling of "Warning" or the intriguingly dark lyrics of "Suicidal Thoughts". Biggie is undoubtedly one of the greatest MCs of all time, any self respecting hip-hop fan will tell you that, and this is easily his best album. It comes 3 years before Puffy managed to commercialise Biggie with pop-rap production and waaay too many guest appearances, when his evil touch only reached as far as annoying ad-libs in the background. This album is definetly a classic, up there with Nas's "Illmatic" and Wu's "Enter The Wu-Tang". I must have listened to it near a hundred times but it just doesn't get boring, his flow and lyrics just make you want to listen again incase you missed something. A definite must for any hip-hop fan or potential hip-hop fan.