maybe not but it's fucking amazing
I had heard most of the songs on the radio or online, but yesterday I heard the entire album. This is a "rap classic" album that truly lives up to that billing.
The problem many have with rap music is that it seems "disposable" and almost "pointless". Very few songs have an actual point, and are instead excercises in which the rapper tells you how much money he has, or how awesome he is. Ready to Die takes a...different approach.
As with many rap albums, this one starts out with an intro track. But unlike many intro tracks which just contain the rapper telling you about how long he's waited to get dat papah, this one starts like the beginning to a concept album. You hear a faint heart beat, which is later replaced by the screams of a woman in birth. Finally, a child is born. It's interesting to note that this event is backdropped by a musical score, here Superfly by Curtis Mayfield, which gives insight into the historical timeline of the events. The wails of Mayfield's high voice are soon replaced by the classic rhymes of the Sugarhill Gang through their classic "Rapper's Delight". Here a neighbor demands an angry mother to keep "that boy" in check, and stop him from robbing convenience stores. Finally the soundtrack enters the 90's - Snoop Doggy Dogg style 90's to be exact - as the main star is let out of prison. After the guard laughs and tells him he'll be back in jail soon enough, Christopher Wallace laughs and merely says "I've got plans. Big plans"
From that point, it's on.
What follows is the portrait into the mindset of a man really ran the streets. Who really sold drugs, got shot at, and all the other cliche rap qualifications many today lie about. Yet despite the subject matter - crack sales, guns, murder, etc - you never get the impression that Wallace (AKA Biggie Smalls) is advocating anything, or glorifying it.
If I wasn't in the rap game
I'd probably have a key knee deep in the crack game
Because the streets is a short stop
Either you're slingin crack rock or you got a wicked jumpshotEvery song seems to have an almost autobiographical feel. What makes it more impressive is Biggie's wordplay, which is witty and impressive as far as gangsta rap is concerned.
I'm seeing body after body and our mayor Giuliani
Ain't trying to see no black man turn into John Gotti
My daughter use a potty so she's older now
Educated street knowledge I'ma mold her now
Trick her little dope bying young girls tringes
Dealing with the dope fiend binges
Seeing syringes in the veins
Hard to explain how I maintain
The crack smoke makes my brain feel so strangeFurther impressive is the storytelling. A staple of rap, "story tellin" references the ability of a rapper to recite a story and take your through it from start to finish. Many of the songs follow this pattern while doing what most rap songs don't seem to do: show verse by verse progression of a singular subject. While it isn't exactly "Ms. Fat Booty"-esque, each of the songs that try to do this do it well. "Everyday Struggle" and "Me and My Bitch" showcase this the best. And nearly every song is carried along by a great beat; the production is very nice
Outside of the standard classics like Juicy and Big Papa, the album features some downright impressive "gangsta" staples like Machine Gun Fuck...
The rocket launcher, biggie stomped ya
High as a motherfuckin helicopter
That's why i pack a Nina, fuck a misdeameanor
Beatin motherfuckers like Ike beat Tina 
...and Warning
Call the coroner
there's gonna be alot of slow singin
and flower bringin
if my burgular alarm starts ringinAnd in keeping up with the almost concept album feel, the final track ends just as the first one began: with heartbeat sounds. Yet here, they slow fade into the distance as the album ends - as well as the character's life.
Outside of one song (Friend of Mine) and the dumb skits, the album is amazing from start to finish. THIS is what "gangsta" rap is.
Pay attention - THIS is a pussy:
Pay attention - THIS is an imposter:
