DanjLovesThe90s!

Speaking of ’94…

In September of that year, I was 14 and in the 10th grade. I rode the bus to and from school everyday with my cheap-ass Walkman turned all the way up, nodding my head and lip-syncin’ the whole time. I stayed with those headphones on everywhere I went- so much in fact, that I just recently saw one of my sister’s old friends at my nephew’s birthday party, and the first thing he asked was “where your headphones at?” In the process of playin’ the shit out of all the tapes I had, few spent more time in the Walkman than The Notorious B.I.G.‘s Ready To Die.

The first time I heard it, I was at Security Square Mall with the homie Ray and a few of his peoples. While in the mall, I stopped in the Waxie Maxie’s with no intentions of buying anything. About 10 minutes later, I walked out with RTD and been lovin’ the shit ever since. I prob’ly came off as an anti-social that day, but once I popped that tape in, that was all I was focused on. Everybody else was having convo amongst themselves; meanwhile, I was caught up in what Big was talkin’ about. Everything about that album seemed fresh and new to me, from the intro to the beats.

By that point, I’d already known about Big from when he dropped “Party & Bullshit” in ’93, but RTD was a whole ‘nother animal. Hearing him previously, I knew he was somethin’ to deal with on the mic, so that wasn’t the surprise about it. There was a lot of talented lyricists back then, and although he stood out, it wasn’t the shock of the hour to hear him destroy shit lyrically. The surprise was the extent to which he could, on songs like “Gimme The Loot” and “Unbelievable”. Prior to those, he had joints like “Party…” and “Dreams Of Fuckin’ An R&B Bitch” which were thorough in their own right, but only scraped the surface of how great he really was, which he proved with the album.

But it wasn’t ALL just about Big. Without the right musical accompaniment, it could’ve fallen on deaf ears, which is where the producers come in. With Easy Mo Bee, Trackmasters, Premier, Lord Finesse, Chucky Thompson, and the Bluez Brothas doing the work on the production side, RTD was also bringing heat on that level. This was around the time when producers started comin’ with a “bigger” sound, with more dramatic effect than what was then the norm. While there were some tracks on the album that were pretty standard for the time (“Machine Gun Funk”), there’s also some that pushed forward a newer feel/sound (“Me & My Bitch”).

Rhymes and beats aside, there’s a bigger impact that Ready To Die had in the years that followed. As I mentioned a couple weeks back, East Coast artists were having a lil’ trouble getting their music to hit outside of those areas. RTD was one of the few that were able to hit on both the street and mainstream levels without losing either side. Even though it’s a normal thing now, most artists back then weren’t coming with R&B-style joints and super-gutter shit at the same time. The impact of that took shape quickly, with everyone from Fat Joe to AZ taking note and applying the same approach to their albums that followed. Nas has also cited that RTD‘s success put him in another mindset once he went to work on It Was Written.

That said, it wasn’t an approach that Biggie himself wanted, as he came into the project just wanting it to be strictly hard (the original intended title of it was Teflon Don). Once under pressure from Puffy to deliver something for the masses, Big created the hits that propelled the album (“Juicy” and “Big Poppa”) and made it happen. Despite how some people may feel about Puff’s hand in that creative process, without that bit of input, RTD could’ve easily been a good album that couldn’t move off the shelves for shit. Even Big later acknowledged that despite his initial resistance, he understood once it translated into the massive success it was.

It might be cliche to say, but 15 years after the fact, Ready To Die is still one of hip-hop’s greatest albums. Even the things that may seem minor now (like the “oh shit… you got a red dot on your head” ending of “Warning”) played as important parts that made it the classic it is. Whenever I listen to it today, I still feel the same about it (and even moreso) as I did when I was 14 walking thru the mall. From killin’ it with Method Man on “The What” to killin’ himself on “Suicidal Thoughts”, Biggie put in work for this album and it paid off through its sales, influence, and endurance. I don’t even know if artists are aiming for all those things today, but anyone who is could still learn a thing or two from Ready To Die.

“Gimme The Loot”

“Warning”

“The What” (featuring Method Man)

“Me & My Bitch”

“Suicidal Thoughts”

-D!