Published on Oct 14, 1997
The ghost of Tupac Shakur haunts Christopher Wallace throughout
his last album,
Life After Death. His death haunts him. Tensions after
Tupac’s death forced Wallace to vaguely hint about his rivalry on
Life After Death, a direct jab from the grave would have
been a declaration of war against Death Row Records.
Tupac haunted Smalls in life. By releasing the first double rap
album ever,
All Eyez On Me, the ball was in Biggie’s court. No matter
how great his follow-up to
Ready To Die could be, it wouldn’t matter if it was a single
album. Technically, Biggie Smalls had to release a double album to
have a stake of the “hardest rapper” title. Indeed, 2Pac proved to
be one of the most infuential artists of this decade by making the
double album. This year, three rap artists have released double
albums. Two artists had the skills to make a good effort:Wu-Tang
Clan and the Notorious B.I.G. The other artist, Bone Thugs N’
Harmony could have just released an EP, thank you very much.
That all said,
Life After Death is a epic double album, filled with rolling
party anthems, but more often, filled with tales of revenge and
premonitions of The Notorious B.I.G.’s death. Indeed, the album is
bookened with accounts of Biggie’s death. The opening track of
Life After Death starts off on a disappointing note, as the
soundtrack of a bad melodrama plays in the background as Puff Daddy
laments in a cheesy tone “We was supposed to rule the world.” The
album’s final track is “You’re Nobody (Til Someone Kills You).”
What’s in the middle is a mix of both incrediable music
production, gritty, unflinching storytelling and humorous
storytelling. There’s also a mix of glaring misogyny, repetative
gangsta posturing and excessive bragging over material goods. In
essence,
Life After Death is a difficult journey, you’re going to get
an unpredictable mix of greatness (“Going Back to Cali”,
“Hypnotize”, “My Downfall”) and borderline silliness (“Playa
Hater”, “I Love The Dough”, “Nasty Boy”).
The production is first rate. Sean “Puffy” Combs and The
Notorious B.I.G. deliver some of the most fluid and dense beats in
rap this past decade, giving 2Pac a formidable answer to
All Eyez on Me. “Hypnotize” is just as ferocious as
“California Love”. And Biggie’s olive branch to the West, “Going
Back to Cali” is one of the most funky, perfectly constructed rap
songs ever made. Samples are used wisely throughout the album, one
of the most striking use is the use of Chuck D’s relentless
countdown on “Shut ’em Down” on “Ten Crack Commandments”. Savor the
irony, one of the most militant, anti-drug groups of the 90s on a
song on how to be a good crack dealer.
Lyric-wise,
Life After Death is horribly inconsistant. Biggie Smalls
lived much of the life he portrayed in
Life After Death. His feelings of anguish of the gangsta
life rings true in “Miss U” when he raps “I’m a thug but I swear
for three days I cried/I look in the sky and ask God why/Can’t look
his baby girls in the eye/Damn I miss you”. Other times, he’s
either posturing, like in “Notorious Thungs” when he boasts “Cash
rule everything around me/shit lyrically niggaz can’t see me/fuck
it, buy the coke.”
While Biggie Smalls has a good deal of female guests on
Life After Death, his sexist remarks on the entire album are
so bad, they’re comedic. The entire album is filled with “bitches”
and “hoes”, even though he pauses to express his love for his
daughter. Like 2Pac, Biggie made no bones about rapping in
contradictions. Still, the song “Fuck You Tonight” has to be one of
the most god awful experiences I endured this year(next to being
dragged to see
Batman and Robin). Guest vocalist R. Kelly swoons in cheesy
porn style “I’m fuuuucking you tonight”. Sorry, but Soundgarden
said it better eight years ago and with a better sense of humor in
“Big Dumb Sex”.
Life After Death did not have to be a career ender for The
Notorious B.I.G. No artist deserves to be murdered on the accounts
of what they put on record. Biggie’s last album represented one of
the last forms of music that can still piss off the masses:gangsta
rap. It also represented the limitations of the genre. True
groundbreakers like DJ Shadow are creating beats that sometimes
surpass the dense bass rumblings of most gangsta rap. And while “My
Downfall” begins with a chilling phone call, artists like Tricky
have proved to be more disturbing in some songs in “Maxiquae and
Pre-Millenium Tension”.
Finally, it comes down to the content of the album. While
Life After Death is a one of those great guilty pleasure
albums for a midwestern white boy, I do have to admit, two hours of
tales of paybacks and boasting about how much dough and bitches the
guy has grew tiresome. At least newer groups like The Fugees show
that rap is capable of addressing other issues while still
delivering the goods.
To quote Chuck D in the song “The Underdog”, “I’m all time and
I’m down for the ruffness/but what good is the rhyme without
substance.” It’s too bad though that we are left with only
interpretations on
Life After Death. It’s a tragedy that this album was clearly
that of an artist still in the stages of developing a potentially
great voice in the 90s.