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The Notorious B.I.G. – Ready to die
Album | 13/09/1994 | Bad Boy Records
68:58 | 17 tracks | CD
Hardcore Rap / Gangsta Rap
Brooklyn, NY, USA
The Birth of Hardcore
In the early 1990s, Christopher George Latore Wallace, better known as The Notorious B.I.G. began recording his first album together with Sean Combs who called himself Puff Daddy in that period. The project was moribund. Wallace lacked experience and material, and then Combs got fired from Uptown Records. Thus, Biggie kept trafficking narcotics until he was invited by Puff Daddy to continue the works on the album on Combs‚ own label Bad Boy Records. What happened then has turned the history of Hip Hop and Rap music upside down. These seventeen tracks are some of the most important foundation stones for Hardcore Rap and the new era of Gangsta Rap.
Sound of the Fearless
Ready to die was the soundtrack for several generations of displaced, disregarded, marginalised people. N.W.A.’s time was over, Biggie Smalls here to take over. He came with a new way of representation, fearless, merciless, cold. The Notorious B.I.G.’s rap performance was raw, honest, and straight from the life of a drugdealer and gangster. With the ton of Funk and Blues samples, the connection to American Black Music is drawn, and with the contemporary lyrics the situation of African Americans in the 1990s is depicted clearly and without filter.
Ready to die is a legendary album, a pioneering work, a milestone. If it was released today, it would be even more controversial than it was thirty years ago.
8/10 Mangoes
Next week in this series:
Deathspell Omega – Si monvmentvm reqvires, circvmspice (02/2004 | Norma Evangelium Diaboli)
We will dance again
Mia Schem
