The Notorious B.I.G.

Why he matters

Christopher Wallace grew up in Clinton Hill, on the Bed-Stuy border, and came up through the most old-fashioned route there is: a demo tape. Mister Cee, Big Daddy Kane’s DJ, heard it and sent it to The Source, which ran it in the Unsigned Hype column in 1992. In 1993 he became the first artist signed to Sean Combs’s Bad Boy.

Ready to Die arrived in September 1994 with a production list that reads like a map of New York at the time: Easy Mo Bee, DJ Premier, Lord Finesse, Chucky Thompson, Combs. It runs as a loose autobiography from birth to the edge, and it’s paced like a film. The singles were the friendly face, “Juicy” and “Big Poppa,” but the album tracks are where the writing gets frightening and specific.

What made it land was the voice. Biggie rarely pushed. He sat back, let the beat breathe, and delivered heavy material in an easy, almost amused tone, which is a big part of why people still quote him. He also built a team around himself: Junior M.A.F.I.A. put Lil’ Kim on record.

He died in March 1997. Life After Death, a double album, came out sixteen days later and went to No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

What a working rapper can take from it

Sequence an album like a story. Ready to Die opens on an intro that stages his birth and closes on its darkest song, and everything in between earns its place in that arc. If you’re putting out a project, decide what the first and last songs say before you pick the middle.

Don’t fight the mic. Biggie’s power came from restraint. He recorded like he was talking to one person, which kept his diction clear and his breath control steady across long verses. The vocal-recording guide covers mic position and the headphone mix, which decides how relaxed your take sounds.

Make a pop single without changing who you are. “Juicy” rides a sample of Mtume’s “Juicy Fruit” and has a chorus sung by Total, but the verses come from the same writer who made the darker album tracks. Let the hook and the beat do the inviting; keep the verses honest.