from the vibe vault: biggie’s ‘life after death’ is the greatest lp since ’93

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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.
 
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What moment on Life After Death stands out most?

Erik Parker:
“Notorious Thugs” speaks to the direction of the album. He co-opted Bone Thugz-n-Harmony’s style. I remember thinking, What the hell is this? Damn, this sounds pretty good. Why am I hating on it?

Jon Caramanica:
At the beginning of “What’s Beef,” he’s like, “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha/check out this bizarre/rapping style used by me/the B.I.G.” It’s this self-aware moment: He’s rapping about how he’s rapping weird. He’s saying, Not only do I know I’m doing something strange, I’m talking about it in this strange style but it’s so seamless that it’s not going to register that it’s strange even though it’s emphatically strange and I’m telling you it’s strange.

Erik Parker:
That was a Biz Markie rip, at that. Which is strange in itself.

Jon Caramanica: Absolutely. But it shows the depth of his skill.

Nas’ Illmatic is obviously another magnum rap opus from this period. How do those two albums compare?

Erik Parker:
Nas is pretty one-note on Illmatic. He’s one aspect of what Life After Deathis, that Biggie was never really able to capture in his records. He’s an observer. He’s above it all but he’s on the ground at the same time. Bird’s eye view and worm’s eye view. Biggie gives you so much more than that. Life After Death is one of the few albums that actually delivered on “I’ve got something for every fan.” Nas didn’t have something for everyone. If you care about the streets, poetry, East coast beats, then [Illmatic] has something for you. Then his conversation stops. Illmatic’s spectrum was smaller, but Nas mastered it. Biggie broadened his spectrum in such a way that he was able to dance around each color. Life After Death can be dark, happy; it can be many different things.

Jon Caramanica: You need Illmatic to get to Life After Death. The thing that Nas did so well on Illmatic was be this very clear-eyed storyteller, but subsequently [in his career] he didn’t imbue that with humor, musical variety or levity. That’s a sober motherfukker right there! [Laughs] It literally got harder to listen to Nas the better that Biggie [got]. It’s like falling in love with the hottest girl in some small town and going to the city like, Are you serious? How could I ever have been with the small town girl? That’s the difference between Illmatic and Life After Death.

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Biggie's 'Life After Death' Is The Greatest LP Since '93
 
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5 mics in the source magazine :wow:
life-after-death-5-mics.jpg
 

DaveyDave

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dont agree with the title at all! it's a great album but it's not always a good thing to cater to all audiences
 

Threnody

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The original version of this album would have been amazing the retail release was watered the fukk down

 

mobbinfms

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damn you really hate everything that doesn't sound like classic 90s? im just curious, not disrespecting
:lolbron:
I like classic 80s shyt too breh.
My point here was that this album sparked the trend of trying to appeal to all demographics in one album. BIG was talented enough to pull it off. How many others made marginal albums trying to follow that template? :mjcry:
Hip hop was at its best when it was regional and rappers weren't overly concerned with making a crossover single :yeshrug:
 

Rapmastermind

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Album killed hip hop. It's a classic though.

To your point mobbin, I don't think I would say "Killed" Hip Hop per say but it may have indirectly made it harder for future generations. Overall "LAD" did more good for Hip Hop because Big showed us how far Hip Hop could take it. With that said Bad Boy 97 opened the floodgates for corporations to really take over Hip Hop like they never had before. It was a slow build in the late 80's to the mid 90's but by 97 they finally got their corporate footprint deep in Hip Hop a$$. So "Life After Death" gave these corporations the ultimate blueprint. If you look at most commerical rap albums today they are formatted modeled more after "Life After Death" than any rap album before it. Overall I do blame Puffy more than Biggie and once he passed, Puffy had nobody there to keep him balanced. The reason I feel "Life After Death" indirectly may have hurt Hip Hop is because Big was so ILL and FLAWLESS that you compare him to everyone.

This is why you always see "Biggie Vs So and So Rapper" For the GOAT. He is held as the standard. Again it's not Big's fault he was the ILLest but I can see how what he accomplished might have had negative effects as well. Dispite this I can't imagine a Hip Hop world without this album. It's hard to listen to "Life After Death" today and not cringe when you hear some of these records being played now because it's clear these rappers are lazy and don't care about the craft. We just saw how "Get Money" was in the spolight. Look how Lyrical Big was on that club song. I mean a street Lyricist like Biggie making #1 single pop records and they are still lyrical? How many "Lyrical" club songs do you hear today? next to none. So though the album is a Classic and Legedary, one problem with the album is Biggie set what seems to be an impossible blueprint that can only be imitated and not duplicated.

The blueprint of mixing Street/Commericalism/Regionalism perfectly. "LAD" expanded Hip Hop by including everything for everyone. But in that broadening it has made a lot of rappers feel they have to try and match it but they don't have Big's skill level to pull it off. I think Jay has done it best as far as using the formula but he hasn't made an album better than "LAD". From NaS to 50 to many others, they all took pages from Big's success with this formula. Yes LL could be credited as trying aspects of this forumla first in the 80's and early 90's but it was "Ready To Die" that got the full formula started and "Life After Death" perfected it. This is why Big is called the GOAT off 2 albums because both albums changed the game. It might be one of the few rap album in History that has a song for every Hip Hop Fan imaginable male and female. So in Biggie trying to please everyone he might have indirectly hurt future Hip Hop because nobody has been albe to execute an album like this since it's release and it's almost been 20 years. I say it all the time, Biggie would probably not be in GOAT Discussions without "Life After Death". "Ready To Die" album alone would of still made him a Legend but "LAD" put him in Best of all Time discussions. Vibe and many others will continue to call it one of the GOAT albums because it was.
 

Enzo

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The Blueprint to modern hip hop. They should teach a class on it in A&R workshops. Props to @Rapmastermind for that analysis. On the other hand, I wish we held this up as a litmus test when signing off on releasing garbage albums.

And if you push that, oh it's a southern album, alright, put that bad boy up against Aquemini or ATLiens. Albums need a Newbery Medal of Honor LOL
 
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