Life After Death – The Notorious B.I.G.
March 31, 2009 | Author: Rhydian H.M.
“Life After Death” is legendary Brooklyn rapper Notorious B.I.G’s second and last participatory album, following his death 16 days before its release. It followed his landmark debut LP “Ready To Die” (1994), continuing many Mafioso narratives and theatrical plays previously heard.
The album features several guests including Puff Daddy, Jay-Z, Lil Kim, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, R. Kelly, Faith Evans to name a few, while receiving production input from DJ Premier, Easy Mo Bee and RZA among others, forming an abundant assortment of 24 tracks. “Life After Death” is one of the most popular album’s of all time, having achieved Diamond status in 2000 and reaching No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Top 200 and No.1 on the Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums charts.
Notorious B.I.G (a.k.a. Biggie Smalls) doesn’t relent in his development of gangsta rap, reinforcing themes of drugs and criminal ambitions in dramatic style throughout the album, such as in “I Love the Dough”, “Somebody’s Got To Die” and “Notorious Thugs”.
Biggie doesn’t shy away from adding some promiscuity into the mix, as he revels in verbal foreplay in “Nasty Boy” and more excessively in his head-to-head with Lil Kim in “Another”, which exhibits the album’s most prominent beat, before the more moderate “F**k You Tonight” backed by smooth vocals of R. Kelly.
Puffy Daddy’s influence plays through on some of the most popular tracks, with a pop coating to “Hypnotize”, “Mo Money Mo Problems” (both of which topped the Billboard Hot 100 charts) and “Sky’s the Limit”.
While the impact of “Ready To Die” was hard to follow, Notorious B.I.G couldn’t have made a better finale than “Life After Death”. There’s more than a little eeriness about the naming of his albums given his premature death (originally his sophomore was titled “Life After Death… ‘Till Death Do Us Part”), something that is exacerbated with his final track “You’re Nobody, Till Somebody Kills You”
“Life After Death” was released on March 25, 1997, selling 690,000 copies in its first week to mark the beginning of what would become posthumous legendary popularity for Christopher Wallace - to such an extent that the rebirth implied by the title was, in retrospect, prophetical. You can check it out here.
Rating: 5/5
