'City of Lies' Reopens the Biggie Smalls Case, Again. Johnny Depp and Forest Whitaker also star in the latest look into the unsolved killing. Brad Furman (“The.
Pop culture loves its deceased icons. Jim Morrison. River Phoenix. All have achieved near-immortality since their passing, their limited bodies of work put on a pedestal and earmarked for eternal greatness. While these artists have become larger than they ever were during their limited lifetimes, it's the hip-hop community who has taken the canonization of its fallen heroes to new heights.
One only has to look as far as Eazy E, Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace (aka Biggie Smalls/Notorious B.I.G.). While Eazy garnered a few tribute albums since his untimely death due to complications brought about by AIDS, Tupac and Biggie have managed to become larger than they ever were in life since their still unsolved murders. The mystique and controversy surrounding their deaths has only added to their legends. It is this very same mystique and controversy that makes an album like so intriguing. For starters the name implies that this is the last album the world will get from B.I.G. However, astute historians will note that nothing is ever so final in the world of rap music. Too $hort announced his retirement from the rap game back in 1992.
He went on to record no less than nine albums since then. Announced his retirement during the recording of his 2003 release.
And while he hasn't released an album since then, he took over as the President of Def Jam Records and has done numerous guest appearances on other people's records, plus there are rumors that he'll record another album. Retirement rumors have hounded, as well, with the artist clarifying that he's just going to take a sabbatical. Given the track record that's already been established, one has to wonder if this will be the final Biggie album, the chapter that closes the book on one of Brooklyn's finest and finally lets the Notorious one truly rest in peace.
That's not the only subtext weighing heavy on the concept of Duets. Most prominently, the specter of commercial gain can't be ignored on a release such as this. Since the passing of Tupac the rap music industry has gone out of its way to exploit the deaths of the genre's most recognized icons, pumping out posthumous albums with a frequency that leave's most rap fans dizzy. It's no wonder that people joke about how Tupac has released more albums since his death than when he was alive. This very subject was obviously weighing heavy on Diddy's mind when putting together Duets. The rap mogul sees fit to comment on the very subject during his contribution to the album's first proper track, 'It Has Been Said' stating: 'critics laugh, said I made a fortune off of his past/all I did was build a dynasty off of his passion&#Array;' The interesting thing is that B.I.G. Has always been the linchpin of Records.
Biggie Smalls Last Album Production Team
None of the label's other artists, with perhaps the exception of Mase, have ever come close to living up to the hype and sales of the big man. The strangest thing, however, is that just as the man formerly known as Puffy comments on how he built his house; he also drops into egocentric patter that almost seems like a dis to his dearly departed friend. In short, he straight up takes credit for creating Biggie and turning him into the talented superstar that he was: 'I took him from coal to diamond/I molded his mind into the most phenomenal artist of any and all time&#Array;' Call me cynical, but usually when paying tribute to somebody you don't go out of your way to point out how you made them who they were.
One can almost see Biggie rolling over in his grave, his thick voice tinged with a hint of menace: 'Puff said what!?'
Biggie Smalls Best Album
A succession of hits, no matter their individual success, does not make an album. An album is meant to tell a story.
Not necessarily in a literal sense—though, it certainly can—but in that every good album has a beginning, middle and end, and that as a whole it’s more than the sum of its parts. Much of this is done through sequencing, which can make or break an album, no matter the individual quality of its tracks. Few albums in hip-hop history make a stronger argument for this case than The Notorious B.I.G.’s Life After Death. At first glance, Life After Death shouldn’t work. It’s 24 tracks deep, and that’s not even counting a multitude of skits peppered between those two dozen songs. Despite having some genuinely great material on their double-disc extravaganzas, neither JAY-Z nor Nas could pull off that kind of excess. Yet, Biggie did.
And he did it with style. The Beginning The introduction on Life After Death picks up where Biggie last left us on the outro to Ready to Die, with his suicide still ringing in our ears as he’s being rushed to the emergency room. Puffy is lamenting his demise as we hear dramatic piano keys give way to falling raindrops.
The sound of Big’s heart rate monitor flatlining, a signal he is experiencing cardiac arrest, is still fading as the first beat on the album kicks in. Arguably the darkest song in his entire discography, “Somebody’s Gotta Die” details Biggie hearing about how his friend C-Rock just got shot by a guy named Jason, and how he plans his revenge. With the supreme eye for detail that made him such a master of storytelling, Biggie lavishes specific details that make the listener envision the scene: the dogs barking, the blood on the sneakers of the friend giving him the bad news, how he knows him from slinging on the 16th floor. Add to that Biggie’s real-life sudden death, which preceded the album’s release by a mere two weeks. As his funeral parade was slowly rolling through the crowded streets of Brooklyn, the freshly pressed discs were already stacked high in record distribution centers all over the world.
Hearing the tragedy of Life After Death’s opening unfold while Biggie’s actual death was still being processed by family, friends, and fans, puts the album in a light wholly devoid of, well, light. The storytelling at work on “Somebody’s Gotta Die” is astonishingly beautiful to behold, but damn. How do you keep the momentum going after you’ve just killed off your main character?
How do you pull your audience back from the abyss after such a torrent of utter darkness? How does this not stop the whole arch of the album dead in its tracks already? The answer: “Hypnotize.”.