I love Latina women
Veteran
this article was posted last year, back in march (march 25th 2015 to be exact)
You never knew what to expect when The Notorious B.I.G. stepped inside the recording booth. Engaging humorist. Underworld fabulist. Swaggering seducer. 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.
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. 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 (“nikkas Bleed”) and hosts one of R. Kelly’s most hilariously obnoxious hooks (“F#@$ You Tonight”). Biggie bucked mid-’90s hip-hop’s divisive nature, shedding frequent flyer miles for Too $hort and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony features. 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. candidates like Jay-Z and Nas.
So we’re championing Big Poppa’s sophomore LP as the greatest to drop since Clinton’s first term. 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. Consider this a Life After Death postmortem. —John Kennedy, Music Editor (2009-2014) [This article was first published in VIBEMagazine in 2013]
VIBE: What made Life After Death such a great musical work?
Erik 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. It’s a major puzzle piece in the unification of hip-hop. That’s a starting point for why it was so impactful.
Jon Caramanica (Music critic, The New York Times): This album is [made of] vibrant, deliberate statements about hip-hop in its fullness. 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. Regionalism starts to die.
Erik Parker: When Jay-Z put UGK on [“Big Pimpin”], that wasn’t an obvious choice. But Biggie kicked in the door [first] and collaborated with different sounds. No one as prominent with New York roots made a record that didn’t feel so regional [before Life After Death].
Jon Caramanica: Right. This is something that made people uncomfortable. But it was also the most necessary thing at the time. So many times innovation comes from fringes, working toward the center. 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.
Life After Death certainly transcended N.Y. rap at the time, but it also catered to those roots, particularly with its storytelling.
Jon Caramanica:The thing about Big is he never sounds like he’s trying hard. There are records that are so coherent, so elegantly rendered, that you almost lose track of the fact that it’s an [actual] story. He did it so casually. 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.
Erik Parker: Prior to that, people heralded Slick Rick as the greatest storyteller in rap. But Biggie [made] Slick Rick’s stories seem outdated. Big’s are funny, street, hard, gangster. You can follow them cohesively, and they still speak in his voice. He elevated the storytelling game.
Jon Caramanica: Storytelling is super important—and he’s really good at it—but he’s also good at party records. He’s also funny. Listen to “Player Hater,”—that’s a hilarious fukking hook. “Hypnotize” is about as good an upbeat bragging record as you can get from that era. Basically, he’s disrupting the idea from the ’90s that to be a great rapper you need to tell stories. He’s saying, actually, you need to tell stories, make party records, be funny and be dark. That’s how you know I’m great, because I can do all of that and sound good.
You never knew what to expect when The Notorious B.I.G. stepped inside the recording booth. Engaging humorist. Underworld fabulist. Swaggering seducer. 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.
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. 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 (“nikkas Bleed”) and hosts one of R. Kelly’s most hilariously obnoxious hooks (“F#@$ You Tonight”). Biggie bucked mid-’90s hip-hop’s divisive nature, shedding frequent flyer miles for Too $hort and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony features. 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. candidates like Jay-Z and Nas.
So we’re championing Big Poppa’s sophomore LP as the greatest to drop since Clinton’s first term. 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. Consider this a Life After Death postmortem. —John Kennedy, Music Editor (2009-2014) [This article was first published in VIBEMagazine in 2013]
VIBE: What made Life After Death such a great musical work?
Erik 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. It’s a major puzzle piece in the unification of hip-hop. That’s a starting point for why it was so impactful.
Jon Caramanica (Music critic, The New York Times): This album is [made of] vibrant, deliberate statements about hip-hop in its fullness. 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. Regionalism starts to die.
Erik Parker: When Jay-Z put UGK on [“Big Pimpin”], that wasn’t an obvious choice. But Biggie kicked in the door [first] and collaborated with different sounds. No one as prominent with New York roots made a record that didn’t feel so regional [before Life After Death].
Jon Caramanica: Right. This is something that made people uncomfortable. But it was also the most necessary thing at the time. So many times innovation comes from fringes, working toward the center. 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.
Life After Death certainly transcended N.Y. rap at the time, but it also catered to those roots, particularly with its storytelling.
Jon Caramanica:The thing about Big is he never sounds like he’s trying hard. There are records that are so coherent, so elegantly rendered, that you almost lose track of the fact that it’s an [actual] story. He did it so casually. 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.
Erik Parker: Prior to that, people heralded Slick Rick as the greatest storyteller in rap. But Biggie [made] Slick Rick’s stories seem outdated. Big’s are funny, street, hard, gangster. You can follow them cohesively, and they still speak in his voice. He elevated the storytelling game.
Jon Caramanica: Storytelling is super important—and he’s really good at it—but he’s also good at party records. He’s also funny. Listen to “Player Hater,”—that’s a hilarious fukking hook. “Hypnotize” is about as good an upbeat bragging record as you can get from that era. Basically, he’s disrupting the idea from the ’90s that to be a great rapper you need to tell stories. He’s saying, actually, you need to tell stories, make party records, be funny and be dark. That’s how you know I’m great, because I can do all of that and sound good.