Ex Post Facto: Albums That Your A&F Editor Listened to While Riding the Magic School Bus
By Ji H Chong
A&F Editor

The Notorious B.I.G.
Ready to Die
Bad boy
1994

What is the meaning of life? I asked my god, the Google search engine, and came across the website truemeaningoflife.com. It's a slightly less funny adaptation of the old Master Ninja website, which featured cartoon ninjas answering questions posted by people who spend entirely too much time on their computers.

On July 15, 2000, a user named "Unenlightened Soul" asked the "Gurus" of the True Meaning of Life website, "Why are we here on earth?" The response, delivered by Chairman Kaga of Iron Chef fame, was "if memory serves me correctly, a force called 'gravity' keeps us upon the earth."

But seriously folks, what really is there besides sleeping in the womb, sleeping to escape stress, and sleeping with the fishes? Nihilists dressed in black spandex bodysuits might say "Nah-thing." If The Notorious B.I.G., born Christopher Wallace, were still with us today however, he might say, as he did artistically in Ready to Die, a combination of hard times, sex, money, and violence.

Biggie Smalls's musical autobiography begins with the thump-thump of a beating heart that leads into a skit that dramatically reenacts his birth and then proceeds to provide short glimpses from Biggie's life including a fight between his parents, his plan to rob subway commuters, and finally, his release from jail where he tells a skeptical prison guard that he's "got big plans."

Over the next 15 tracks, Biggie tells three to five minute long stories that, for the most part, paint a gritty portrait of Life as a hardened, old man with dark, deep-set eyes that no longer register surprise, ever.

The topics of the tracks in Ready to Die are no different from any of those in most other gangsta-rap albums, dealing with violent assaults ("Gimme the Loot"), sexual prowess ("Big Poppa," "One More Chance"), and the like. What makes the album stand out and what propelled Biggie to "rap phenomenon" status was his skill, lacking by many rappers today, at the "da art of storytelling," as Slick Rick might say.

For example, in "Warning," the song's plot involves two assailants' scheme to rob the now-rich and famous Biggie Smalls. But Biggie responds by warning that "There's gonna be a lot of slow singing, and flower bringing / if my burglar alarm starts ringing / Whatcha think all the guns is for? / All purpose war, got the Rottweilers by the door / And I feed 'em gunpowder, so they can devour / the criminals, tryin to drop my decimals."

Not all the tracks on Ready to Die are gloom and doom either. Biggie shows he can do happy with the best rags-to-riches story since Horatio Alger in track 10, "Juicy."

"I never thought it could happen, this rapping stuff / I was too used to packing gats and stuff / Now honeys play me close like butter play toast / From the Mississippi down to the East Coast / Condos in Queens, indo for weeks / Sold out seats to hear Biggie Smalls speak / Living life without fear / Putting five karats in my baby girl's ears / Lunches, brunches, interviews by the pool / Considered a fool 'cause I dropped out of high school / Stereotypes of a black male misunderstood / And it's still all good."

After so many tracks demonstrating Biggie's take on life, Ready to Die ends the same way it began: with the sound of a heartbeat. Except this time, the beating heart comes to a slow stop at the end of the last track, "Suicidal Thoughts," thus bringing the musical autobiography to a stunning conclusion.