Artist : Notorious BIG
Album : Life After Death
Label : Bad Boy Records
Release Date : March 25, 1997
Track listing:
Disc 1
1) life after death intro
2) somebody gotta die
3) hypnotize
4) kick in the door
5) fucking you tonight ft R.kelly
6) last day ft the lox
7) i love the dough ft Jay z
8) whats beef ?
9) B.I.G interlude
10) mo money mo problems ft puff daddy & ma$e
11) niggaz bleed
12) i got a story to tell
Disc 2
1) notorious thugz ft bone thugs
2) miss u ft 112
3) another ft Lil kim
4) goin back to cali
ten crack commandments
5) playa hata
6) nasty boy
7) skys the limit ft 112
8) the world is filled...... ft puff daddy & too short
9) my downfall
10) long kiss goodnight
11) your nobody(till somebody kills you)
RAPCENTRAL REVIEW:
It may have taken the Notorious B.I.G. a few years to follow up his milestone debut, Ready to Die (1994), with another album, but when he did return with Life After Death in 1997, he did so in a huge way.This album was intended to be the T2 of rap albums,three times the original budget twice as long and bigger and better in everyway.
With dj premier easy mo bee clark kent,rza doing a lot of the production the beats are tight and are far superior to the beats made for ready to die.
This album is loved because it has everything a rap fan could wish for,if you want to hit that club and get the girls dancing you have mo money,hypnotize and nasty boy,if like me you love the tarantino like stories you have three classice here in somebody gotta die , niggaz bleed and i got a story to tell.
Leading up to this album biggie had been involved in various beefs involving NaS,Raekwon and that little beef involving a certain 2pac and in true biggie style they are all addressed sublimaly.In kick in the door nas and raekwon are addressed but it is without doubt the song long kiss goodnight which has the most fans talking where there are several references to 2pac and the whole east/west beef.
There are dissapointments on this album the bland lil kim track Another and the r kelly track fucking you tonight which seems like a typical album filler.
The title is even more ironic than bigs debut ready to die as this album dropped a mere 16 days after his murder in los angeles.
Where would big have gone after this album no one will ever know for sure but if rumours are true he wanted to make one more album and call it born again(puffy used this name for the postumous album)then retire in 2000 to concentrate on being a father to his two children and enjoy the rest of his life,sadly that never came to be but this album was a commercial success(in 2000 not even three years out it had been certified diamond 10 million albums sold)and critically acclaaimed the whole world over.
In my opinion i would have liked to see a few less guests on the album mainly bein lil kim that damn puffy on damn near every track and heard songs like the world is filled.... and last days as biggie solos.
Top Tracks
Long kiss goodnight
Hypnotize
Kick in the door
Written by - ELEPHANT MAN
RAPCENTRAL OVERALL RATING:
4.5
Professional Review - Rolling Stones
Into this epidemic of violence comes the double CD Life After Death. The album is riddled with chilling ironies in the wake of the recent murder of its creator, the Brooklyn, N.Y., rapper Notorious B.I.G. (a k a Biggie Smalls) in Los Angeles. On the cover, Biggie stands solemnly next to a hearse; the hottest track is titled, with a nod to L.L. Cool J, "Going Back to Cali" and lifts its Zapp-derived vocoder sound from "California Love," the ferocious single by Biggie's slain left-coast rival, Tupac Shakur; the last song, unbelievably, is called "You're Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You)," a wry acknowledgment that at least in the rap (and rock) world, larger-than-life figures become larger still in violent death
It can be no surprise, though, that the real stars of Life After Death are the Notorious B.I.G. himself – whose flow can seem both declamatory and sensually deft – and his producer, Sean "Puffy" Combs, the man who for all too many reasons is now sitting at ground zero of the hip-hop nation. Together they constructed a sprawling, cinematic saga of the thug life, a conscious continuation of Ready to Die. Life After Death captures crime's undeniable glamour ("I Love the Dough," "Sky's the Limit") but doesn't stint on the fear ("Last Day"), desperation ("Niggas Bleed") and irretrievable loss ("Miss U") that the streets inevitably exact.
"I don't wanna die/God, tell me why," Combs whispers in the background of the chorus on the death-haunted "You're Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You)." It's a simple prayer, and its emotional directness undercuts – and reveals the terror underlying – much of the mack posturing that precedes it. Those lines resonate eerily after the album concludes, and the listener returns to the real world to wonder when all this end. Or when the shots will ring out again.
