Ready to Die

Product Information

In presenting the downside of that life, Ready to Die offers perhaps the most balanced and honest portrait of the dealer's life of any in hip-hop". When executive producer Sean "Puffy" Combs was fired from Uptown, Biggie's career hung in limbo, as the album was only partially completed. Featuring production by Combs and Chucky Thompson of The Hitmen, it samples " Between the Sheets" by The Isley Brothers. The first tracks recorded include the album's darker, less radio-friendly content (including "Ready to Die," "Gimme the Loot" and "Things Done Changed"). This decision was questioned by some legal experts: Anthony Falzone of the Fair Use Project at Stanford Law School criticized Combs and Bad Boy for not defending the legality of sampling and suggested that they might have refused to raise such a defense because they feared it could later imperil their control over their own music.

The album has cemented its place in hip-hop history and has since gone on to achieve 6x platinum certification in the US, selling over 3. The partly autobiographical album tells the story of the rapper's experiences as a young criminal, and was the only studio album released during his lifetime, as he was murdered sixteen days before the release of his second album Life After Death in 1997. Coker had a similar view of the song, noting that it was "one of the bawdiest sex raps since Kool G Rap's classic, " Talk Like Sex" and continued, stating it "proves hilarious simply because of B. The song was nominated at the 1996 Grammy Awards for Best Rap Solo Performance, but lost to Coolio's " Gangsta's Paradise". The album contains a loose concept starting out with an intro that details his birth, his early childhood, his adolescence and his life at the point of the album's release.Ready to Die was then certified triple Platinum on August 26, 1998, and was later certified 4× Platinum by the RIAA on October 19, 1999. On April 2, 2014, Lee Hutson of The Impressions filed a multimillion-dollar copyright infringement suit against Combs, Bad Boy Records, and the estate of the late Notorious B. This x2LP re-issue featuring the iconic artwork of an infant bearing a resemblance to the rapper has been out of the marketplace for over a decade and also features all 19 tracks from the Ready to Die Sessions.

Steve Huey presented some criticism over the beats, stating that the "deliberate beats do get a little samey, but it hardly matters: this is Biggie's show". From the breathtakingly visual moments of his birth to his Cobainesque end in 'Suicidal Thoughts,' B.The album features productions by Bad Boy founder Sean "Puffy" Combs, Easy Mo Bee, Chucky Thompson, DJ Premier, and Lord Finesse, among others. Three singles were released from the album: " Juicy", " Big Poppa", " One More Chance" and a promotional track of Biggie: "Warning". However, for younger fans like me that have never heard the og release, this record is more than enough.

In 2011, Rolling Stone also placed it at number eight on their 100 Best Albums of the Nineties list, and described it as "mapping out the sound of ' Nineties cool'".In 2020, the album was ranked 22nd on Rolling Stone 's updated list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and was ranked 1st on their list of the 200 Greatest Hip-Hop Albums of All Time. In 2003, they ranked it number 133 on their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list, [35] 134 in a 2012 revised list, [36] and 22 in a 2020 revised list. In this stage, the more commercial-sounding tracks of the album were recorded, including the album's singles.

Songs on the album range from homicide narratives ("Warning") to braggadocios battle raps ("The What," "Unbelievable"). On March 24, 2006, Bridgeport Music and Westbound Records won a federal lawsuit against Bad Boy Records for copyright infringement, with a jury deciding that Combs and Bad Boy had illegally used samples for the production of the songs "Ready to Die", "Machine Gun Funk", and "Gimme the Loot". The album was significant for revitalizing the East Coast hip hop scene, amid West Coast hip hop's commercial dominance.The production is mainly sample-based with the samples varying from the percussion of funk tracks to the vocals of hip hop songs. Big Poppa" was a hit on multiple charts, peaking at number six on the Billboard Hot 100 and also being nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap Solo Performance at the 1996 Grammy Awards. In 2006, Time magazine included it on their 100 Greatest Albums of All Time list, and stated "On Ready to Die, Wallace took his street corner experiences and filtered them through his considerable charm. Former Impressions singer Lee Hutson slaps hip-hop mogul Diddy, Bad Boy Entertainment and estate of Notorious B.