Soul Strut 100: # 62 - Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to Die

RAJ

I will slowly be unveiling the Top 100 Soul Strut Related Records as Voted by the Strutters Themselves.

# 62 - Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to Die



The list so far:

# 100 - Jr. and His Soulettes - Psychodelic Sounds
# 99 - Sir Joe Quarterman & Free Soul
# 98 - Donny Hathaway - S/T (1971)
# 97 - Bernard Wright - ???Nard
# 96 - Tom Scott - Honeysuckle Breeze
# 95 - People Under the Stairs - Question in the Form of an Answer
# 94 - Harlem River Drive
# 93 - Black Moon - Enta Da Stage
# 92 - Marvin Gaye - Here, My Dear
# 91 - Muddy Waters - Electric Mud
# 90 - Les McCann - Layers
# 89 - Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland
# 88 - Leroy Hutson - Hutson (1975)
# 87 - ESG - S/T (1981)
# 86 - Can - Tago Mago
# 85 - Bohannon - Stop & Go
# 84 - WILLIAM DEVAUGHN - Be Thankful For What You Got
# 83 - Power of Zeus - The Gospel According to Zeus
# 82 - Gang Starr - Hard To Earn
# 81 - The J.B.???s - Doing It to Death
# 80 - Parliament - Osmium
# 79 - McNeal & Niles - Thrust
# 78 - The Lafayette Afro Rock Band - Malik
# 77 - Earth, Wind, and Fire (1971)
# 76 - Dr. Dre - The Chronic
# 75 - Black Sabbath (1970)
# 74 - Trap Door / An International Psychedelic Mystery Mix (2006)
# 73 - Bob James - One
# 72 - Matthew Larkin Cassell - Pieces
# 71 - The Beginning Of The End - Funky Nassau
# 70 - Big Bear - Doin??? Thangs
# 69 - Steely Dan - Aja
# 68 - Quasimoto - The Unseen
# 67 - Curtis Mayfield - Curtis/Live! (1971)
# 66 - Al Green - Im still in love with you
# 65 - The Beatnuts - Street Level
# 64 - Archie Whitewater - Archie Whitewater (1970)
# 63 - Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth - Mecca & the Soul Brother

Please discuss your reactions to this record. The thread will be archived later here.

About


Ready to Die is the debut album of American rapper The Notorious B.I.G., released September 13, 1994 on Bad Boy Records. The first release on the label, it features production by record producer and Bad Boy founder Sean "Puffy" Combs, Easy Mo Bee, Chucky Thompson, DJ Premier, and Lord Finesse, among others. Recording sessions for the album took place during 1993 to 1994 at The Hit Factory and D&D Studios in New York City. The partly autobiographical album tells the story of The Notorious B.I.G.'s experiences as a young criminal, referring to himself as "the black Frank White". Ready to Die is his only studio album released during his lifetime; B.I.G. was murdered days prior to the release of his second album Life After Death (1997).

Ready to Die gained strong reviews on release and became a commercial success, reaching quadruple platinum sales. It was significant for revitalizing the East Coast hip hop scene, amid West Coast hip hop's commercial dominance.[1] The album's second single, "Big Poppa", was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance at the 1996 Grammy Awards. Ready to Die has been regarded by several music critics as one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time. In 2003, the album was ranked number 133 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, making it the third highest hip hop album on the list. In 2006, Time included it on their list of the 100 greatest albums of all time.[2]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ready_to_Die

Related Threads

Judge Halts Notorious B.I.G. Album Sales
The baby on the cover of ???Ready To Die???...
Your Favorite Hip-Hop Album

DustedDon

:goat:

:hard_as_fuck:

HarveyCanal

First time I heard the album was at one of my sister's small college basketball games. They played it loud during pre-game, during time-outs, at halftime, as soon as the game ended...then it was playing louder in the parking lot. It was obviously HUGE.

pcmr

this record is near perfection
cradle to the ''near'' grave intro-outro
personal approach, humor, emotion, raw skills, exquisite production
you felt you knew biggie and what he went through


and puffy doesn't get much props from me but from discovering biggie to releasing this type of a record and all the production decisions were on point

if one album embodies hiphop in it's purest form this is it

asstro

It would be perfect if it didn't have "Respect" on it. Otherwise totally unfadeable.

BeatChemist

I remember hearing the whole album for the first time in my cousin's car while we were vacationing during the summer. Me and My Bitch made a strong impression on me - possibly due to the contrast of misogyny and love for his bitch. Ha.

Obviously this is straight classique. People that don't be listening to raps still know the words to Juicy and Big Poppa. My favourites to this day are The What (Method Man in his prime!), Unbelievable, and Warning. The remix to One More Chance is dope too.

This album also gets extra credit for the nasty sex interlude.

SIRUS

this album owes a big debt to face's first album.

Rishan

i have never been able to get into this album. too polished and clinical for me. sounds forced and trite

batmon

Great and Overrated

finelikewine

Rishan said:

i have never been able to get into this album. too polished and clinical for me. sounds forced and trite

Your kidding, right?

Added to the soulstrut top 100 spotify playlist:

http://open.spotify.com/user/1121775350/playlist/54CR4Ce88uFkr6shaMHxVX

DJ_Enki

BeatChemist said:

The What (Method Man in his prime!)

Such a great song (in fact, it's my go-to song when it's time to play Biggie because "Juicy" and "Big Poppa" are so played out). I only recently found out what the sample is, too--Easy Mo Bee did his thing with that one.

RAJ

Rishan said:

i have never been able to get into this album. too polished and clinical for me. sounds forced and trite

Never got into Life After Death, but this is a stone cold classic.

eleven

"I got techniques drippin out my buttcheeks/ sleep on my stomach so I don't fuck up my sheets"

BallzDeep

ONCE AGAIN THANK U SS FOR INTRODUCING TO ME ANOTHER HIDDEN GEM.

holmes

didn't think i ever really dug this but find myself nodding along to a lot of it.
but how the fuck is it "hidden"? dude was like the biggest (no pun intended) hip hop identity of the late 90s, unavoidable, like the opposite of "hidden".

Dante

holmes said:

didn't think i ever really dug this but find myself nodding along to a lot of it.
but how the fuck is it "hidden"? dude was like the biggest (no pun intended) hip hop identity of the late 90s, unavoidable, like the opposite of "hidden".

he was trying to be funny.

DocMcCoy

These in particular, in addition to cosigning its obvious era-defining status;

The What (Method Man in his prime!), Unbelievable, and Warning. The remix to One More Chance is dope too.

Does anyone remember how each format had a different configuration? 11 tracks on the o.g. single album, I think 13 on the tape and maybe 15 or 16 on the CD? For some reason it seemed a little odd at the time, even apart from being a brazen attempt to crowbar as much cash out of the punters as possible. I remember feeling a bit shortchanged when I bought the vinyl, especially after I heard the CD.

Dawhud

I think that Wikipedia jawn in wrong. I believe Craig Mack's LP dropped before Biggie's ish. I thought "Ready to Die" came out closer to November.

BeatChemist

Ready to Die should also get credit for 80% of this album's sales:





;)

Dawhud

^^^Word. And the best jawns on that LP were the ones with Biggie.

staxwax

I vividly remember this album dropping. Having heard dreams of fucking an r&b bitch blow up about a year before this came out there was quite a lot of anticipation to this and i copped it the first week. I remember at the time thinking it was classic, but making a tape with just the standout tunes because there was a bit of filler on the record imo. Its an obvious classic and big was a great great mc. But i didnt check for any of the post humous output and went sour on puff and bad boy and all the utter crud that came out of that camp soon afterwards. All these kids repping big as the greatest ever and the whole biggie and pac adulation that followed their deaths is some real gossipy outside looking in sucker shit to me. All these kids buying into the myth capitalising off the violent death he suffered and the glorifying and romanticising of his death is wack as hell. The album is a classic, no doubt, and big is def one of many great mcs. But take the whole best there ever was myth and sell it back to the herbs pushing it. thats where my memories end and the fake non head marketing of east vs west and bullshit non hip hop hype came in and polluted the whole game with bullshit to the point where people now understand this to be some universal truth about hip hop and big being the best ever. Fuck that. He was just a great mc, and this was a great, albeit very short moment. But these 80's and 90's babies who bought the shirt and fawn over the myth need to fall way way the fuck back to the back of the rear.

tripledouble

i support that!

kitchenknight

eleven said:

"I got techniques drippin out my buttcheeks/ sleep on my stomach so I don't fuck up my sheets"

Yup.

b/w

The What

kitchenknight

eleven said:

"I got techniques drippin out my buttcheeks/ sleep on my stomach so I don't fuck up my sheets"

Yup.

b/w

The What

batmon

staxwax said:

I vividly remember this album dropping. Having heard dreams of fucking an r&b bitch blow up about a year before this came out there was quite a lot of anticipation to this and i copped it the first week. I remember at the time thinking it was classic, but making a tape with just the standout tunes because there was a bit of filler on the record imo. Its an obvious classic and big was a great great mc. But i didnt check for any of the post humous output and went sour on puff and bad boy and all the utter crud that came out of that camp soon afterwards. All these kids repping big as the greatest ever and the whole biggie and pac adulation that followed their deaths is some real gossipy outside looking in sucker shit to me. All these kids buying into the myth capitalising off the violent death he suffered and the glorifying and romanticising of his death is wack as hell. The album is a classic, no doubt, and big is def one of many great mcs. But take the whole best there ever was myth and sell it back to the herbs pushing it. thats where my memories end and the fake non head marketing of east vs west and bullshit non hip hop hype came in and polluted the whole game with bullshit to the point where people now understand this to be some universal truth about hip hop and big being the best ever. Fuck that. He was just a great mc, and this was a great, albeit very short moment. But these 80's and 90's babies who bought the shirt and fawn over the myth need to fall way way the fuck back to the back of the rear.

thank you

edpowers

There is more than enough recorded and written B.I.G for him to be considered the greatest rapper of all time. B.I.G accomplished more between 93-97 than Rakim 86-90......Kurt Cobain also died a violent death and is celebrated the same as Biggie among "80's and 90's babies". I assume this qualifies them as herbs also.

Jonny_Paycheck

that is the most sour old man shakes fist at the sky shit I've read on this site in a long time and that's really saying something.

I'm not even the biggest Ready To Die fan in the world. But to my ear BIG, and that record, have gotten better with age, not the reverse. Dudes showing their ass and bloomers... posturing against fans' interpretation of artists' work is strictly little dude.


b/w


as soon as I saw this one poasted I knew it was only a matter of time before the so-called "real heads" came out to say that it wasn't all that, "too polished", he wasn't lyrically lyrical enough, overrated, etc.

Great record.

finelikewine

Jonny_Paycheck said:

that is the most sour old man shakes fist at the sky shit I've read on this site in a long time and that's really saying something.

I'm not even the biggest Ready To Die fan in the world. But to my ear BIG, and that record, have gotten better with age, not the reverse. Dudes showing their ass and bloomers... posturing against fans' interpretation of artists' work is strictly little dude.


b/w


as soon as I saw this one poasted I knew it was only a matter of time before the so-called "real heads" came out to say that it wasn't all that, "too polished", he wasn't lyrically lyrical enough, overrated, etc.

Great record.

tripledouble

jonny, thats about as sour old man of an interpretation of what staxwax wrote as you can get. besides telling the biggie shirt wearing populace to fall way back, i find it hard to disagree with anything he said. he gives the man his accolades, he gives the album its deserved props, and he shakes his head at a lot of the marketing and media that spun out of control around it and may have contributed to biggies killing.

this records great. much better than the cash ins that followed

Jonny_Paycheck

I dunno Tone, post was damning with faint praise IMO. Basically, "cool but it ain't all that" surrounded by "you damn kids" and "I hatt Puff so much right now!"

One posthumous LP. A couple tribute songs. What I get from you dudes is bascally that people shouldn't like him as much as they do. Seems kind of flimsy

HarveyCanal

staxwax said:

I vividly remember this album dropping. Having heard dreams of fucking an r&b bitch blow up about a year before this came out there was quite a lot of anticipation to this and i copped it the first week. I remember at the time thinking it was classic, but making a tape with just the standout tunes because there was a bit of filler on the record imo. Its an obvious classic and big was a great great mc. But i didnt check for any of the post humous output and went sour on puff and bad boy and all the utter crud that came out of that camp soon afterwards. All these kids repping big as the greatest ever and the whole biggie and pac adulation that followed their deaths is some real gossipy outside looking in sucker shit to me. All these kids buying into the myth capitalising off the violent death he suffered and the glorifying and romanticising of his death is wack as hell. The album is a classic, no doubt, and big is def one of many great mcs. But take the whole best there ever was myth and sell it back to the herbs pushing it. thats where my memories end and the fake non head marketing of east vs west and bullshit non hip hop hype came in and polluted the whole game with bullshit to the point where people now understand this to be some universal truth about hip hop and big being the best ever. Fuck that. He was just a great mc, and this was a great, albeit very short moment. But these 80's and 90's babies who bought the shirt and fawn over the myth need to fall way way the fuck back to the back of the rear.

What's ultimately the funniest about this is...that your canned overreaction to what happened back then and how it's been portrayed since is even more predictable and cliche' than the so-called wackness you are attempting to shout down.

To utterly dismiss that there actually was an East-West beef which went right along with pretty much a then-nationwide Crip versus Blood mentality (yes, the press blew it out of proportion, but that doesn't mean that it didn't exist)...

And to also deny that 2Pac and Biggie indeed were/are 2 of the best to have ever rapped, that's bad enough.

But then to shit on a crowd younger than you for of course accepting and embracing a reality that only from your outlying island are you even able to label as myth...well, that just sucks on your part.

Just because you personally don't like the way shit actually went down doesn't give you the right to try to rewrite history, especially in the most stale reactionary way possible.