When I covered the 2020 class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a few weeks ago, the artist I was the least surprised to see make the cut was the Notorious B.I.G -- it would just have been strange if they inducted 2Pac at the first opportunity but not Biggie. I usually look at 4 albums as the bare minimum to really be able to make a good 80-minute playlist in this series where I actually curate the selection and aren't just using every possible song, and Biggie really stretches the limit with only 2 proper albums. Even the posthumous albums are pretty hit-and-miss and largely remix previously released verses. But I decided to give myself the challenge of trying to make a good enough playlist to justify posting it, and ultimately it wasn't that hard simply because almost every verse Big ever put on tape was good or more often great, he was just insanely consistent.

The Notorious B.I.G. deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Everyday Struggle
2. Guaranteed Raw (demo)
3. Kick In The Door
4. Oh My Lord with Junior M.A.F.I.A.
5. Gimme The Loot
6. Come On featuring Sadat X
7. Biggie/Tupac Live Freestyle with 2Pac
8. Running Your Mouth featuring Busta Rhymes, Fabolous, Nate Dogg and Snoop Dogg
9. I Got A Story To Tell
10. Unbelievable
11. Love No Ho (demo)
12. Ten Crack Commandments
13. Ultimate Rush featuring Missy Elliott
14. Respect featuring Diana King
15. Notorious Thugs featuring Bone Thugs-n-Harmony
16. Suicidal Thoughts
17. Realm Of Junior M.A.F.I.A. with Junior M.A.F.I.A.
18. Lovin' You For Life with Faith Evans and Lil Kim
19. What's Beef?

Tracks 1, 5, 10, 14 and 16 from Ready To Die (1994)
Tracks 4 and 17 from Conspiracy by Junior M.A.F.I.A. (1995)
Tracks 3, 9, 12, 15 and 19 from Life After Death (1997)
Track 6 from Born Again (1999)
Track 7 from The Tunnel by Funkmaster Flex and Big Kap (1999)
Track 13 from Duets: The Final Chapter (2005)
Track 8 from Greatest Hits (2007)
Tracks 2 and 11 from Notorious: Music From And Inspired By The Original Motion Picture (2009)
Track 18 from The King & I with Faith Evans (2017)

Obviously, the 2 proper albums were gonna be at least half of the playlist, and there's an embarrassment of riches on those records. So I just kinda went with my gut of which ones I love the most or feel too undeniable to exclude or sound best in this context, but I probably could've picked 10 other songs from Ready To Die and Life After Death that are just as good as these. Ready To Die is a top 5 rap album for me, and a big part of that is because it's so much darker and meaner than its legacy as the blockbuster that made New York rap slicker and more R&B-friendly -- up until "Juicy" at track 10, it's a pretty aggressive record, including the original version of "One More Chance."

Biggie really isn't on the Junior M.A.F.I.A. album a whole lot besides the big singles everybody knows, but there were a couple good tracks worth including. I kind of ignored the Notorious biopic and companion soundtrack when they came out a decade ago, and was pleasantly surprised to hear the 3 demos at the end of the album that really capture Big's raw talent at that moment where he was rhyming with effortless ease and charisma but just beginning to get good at writing songs. I wish that the posthumous albums had more stuff like that and less remixed stuff with people Biggie never actually worked with, although I always really dug "Ultimate Rush." I imagine if Big had lived he almost certainly would've collaborated with Missy, probably by the end of '97, so it's just fun to hear them together and wonder.

"Biggie/Tupac Live Freestyle" is just one of the greatest live rap recordings ever, a brief glimpse of what we could've had if hip hop's most legendary rivals had remained friends and done proper collaborative songs together. So it was fun to throw that into the mix as a bridge between the studio track where Big used the same rhymes, "Come On," and a posthumous track that sampled the live recording for a hook, "Running Your Mouth."

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 23, 2020 at 5:22 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.