the notorious big ready to die album cover

The album is also sprinkled with reflections on the soul-draining bleakness of the streets - 'Things Done Changed,' 'Ready to Die,' and 'Everyday Struggle' are powerfully affecting in their confusion and despair. A sense of doom pervades his most involved stories: fierce bandits ('Gimme the Loot'), a hustler's beloved girlfriend ('Me & My Bitch'), and robbers out for Biggie's newfound riches ('Warning') all die in hails of gunfire. Yet, no matter how much he heightens things for effect, it's always easy to see elements of Biggie in his narrators and of his own experience in the details everything is firmly rooted in reality, but plays like scenes from a movie.

He's blessed with a flair for the dramatic, and slips in and out of different contradictory characters with ease. His raps are easy to understand, but his skills are hardly lacking - he has a loose, easy flow and a talent for piling multiple rhymes on top of one another in quick succession.

Today it's recognized as one of the greatest hardcore rap albums ever recorded, and that's mostly due to Biggie's skill as a storyteller. a star, and vaulted Sean 'Puffy' Combs' Bad Boy label into the spotlight as well. The album that reinvented East Coast rap for the gangsta age, Ready to Die made the Notorious B.I.G.

The notorious big ready to die album cover