MUSIC REVIEW | Notorious B.I.G – Ready to Die (1994)

In a nutshell, Bored & Dangerous says: “A record that totally justifies its reputation and ever growing legacy.”
The fact that I will hear certain albums or see certain movies is just inevitable. It may have taken me until I was in my 20s, but I finally heard The Beatles (AKA The White Album) and knew that I had ticked something off a list of life’s must does. The same thing happened around the same time when I saw Casablanca. Writing Bored and Dangerous has been a great boot in the ass to make me get to more of these must does more often. Like today, with Notorious B.I.G and Ready to Die.

With an intro going from 60s soul, to hip hops earliest days, to the sounds of a couple having a drop down, drag out fight, to gangsta rap, to two dudes cocking guns before a robbery, to Biggie Smalls leaving the big house, the montage that is Intro gives us a snapshot of everything, good and bad, music and real life, that has made Notorious B.I.G the man he is, and lead to the record that is about to play out. I generally hate sketches on hip hop records, but there’s something too genuine and raw about Intro for me to dismiss it. It actually accomplishes setting a tone, where most sketches are a complete waste of time.

MUSIC REVIEW | ***SWANSONG WEEK*** 2Pac – All Eyez on Me (1996)

When it comes to prolific and productive dead dudes, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who beats Tupac Shakur.  Even me, a guy who has little to no knowledge of hip hop and the artists who populate that world, knows that his posthumous output has become somewhat of a punchline.  I don’t think its joke status is based on quality, I think it’s purely based on the regularity of releases since he caught a few bullets almost 20 years ago.

So there are half a dozen or more albums newer than All Eyez on Me, but as a music fan in general, I can’t count them as true 2Pac records.  Too many third parties and people not named Tupac Shakur have had their grubby hands on those.  So for Swansong Week, I think the last album released in Pac’s lifetime qualifies, not the stuff that has come since.