The sound of Big’s heart rate monitor flatlining, a signal he is experiencing cardiac arrest, is still fading as the first beat on the album kicks in. Puffy is lamenting his demise as we hear dramatic piano keys give way to falling raindrops. The Beginning The introduction on Life After Death picks up where Biggie last left us on the outro to Ready to Die, with his suicide still ringing in our ears as he’s being rushed to the emergency room. Despite having some genuinely great material on their double-disc extravaganzas, neither JAY-Z nor Nas could pull off that kind of excess. It’s 24 tracks deep, and that’s not even counting a multitude of skits peppered between those two dozen songs. At first glance, Life After Death shouldn’t work. Still, Big never sacrificed any of the narrative grit-look no further than “Ten Crack Commandments” or his much-imitated, never-duplicated flow.įew albums in hip-hop history make a stronger argument for this case than The Notorious B.I.G.’s Life After Death. Too Short & Puff Daddy) 20 - My Downfall (feat.

Lil Kim) 15 - Going Back To Cali 16 - Ten Crack Commandments 17 - Nasty Boy 18 - Sky's The Limit (feat. Mase & Puff Daddy) 10 - Niggas Bleed 11 - I Got A Story To Tell 12 - Notorious Thugs 13 - Miss U 14 - Another (feat. Interlude 09 - Mo Money Mo Problems (feat. Jay-Z & Angela Winbush) 07 - What's Beef 08 - B.I.G. Life After Death Instrumentals 01 - Somebodys Gotta Die 02 - Hypnotize 03 - Kick In The Door 04 - Fuck You Tonight (feat. Closing out the album is “You're Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You),” which despite its biblical intro and moody Faith Evans backing vocals, finds The Black Frank White himself unperturbed by death.Notorious B.I.G. 'The World Is Filled” then features West Coast rap veteran Too $hort, which is in turn contrasted by NYC rap veteran DMC on “My Downfall,” a track that also features (wedged between No Way Out’s “Victory” and “Long Kiss Goodnight”). Naturally, that record was followed by “Ten Crack Commandments,” a track featuring a booming Chuck D countdown over a classic DJ Premier beat, without a doubt the most NY record on the album. He’d also unabashedly express his love for California on “Going Back To Cali,” a typical West Coast banger complete with Roger Troutman sample. Decades before from regionally successful rap acts, Biggie was collaborating with Bone Thugs-N-Harmony on a track that’d fit right in on one of their own albums.

On the second half of the album, we see Biggie introduce another element to his game of contrasting tracks: adopting styles from other regions.

It’s every bit as recognizable and even more unchanged than the Diana Ross source material that follows, but the end result is a sharp contrast that moves the story along.

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