The Notorious B.I.G.’s ‘Ready to Die’ at 30: All 17 Songs Ranked

A hilariously raunchy skit, this back-and-forth starring Big and Lil Kim added a lite, comedic touch to the album. It was a nice mood cleanse following the raw onslaught of the first seven records.

There’s a good chance that this (and one other track on this album) is one of the very, very few Big records that is either forgotten about or not even mentioned in most conversations. But this is one of the very, very few records where a vulnerable Big Poppa sheds his playa image to admit being played: “Now I play her far like a moon play a star,” he raps, proving the loss didn’t slow up his wordplay technique one bit.

Ready to Die’s sonic prologue starts like the beginning to a brilliant coming-of-age film. Despite its three-and-a-half-minute length, it is an essential listen when interpreting this album, as it colorfully unpacks the phrase “another day, another struggle.” The intro takes us inside the evolution of its narrator, from delivery room to wall-piercing childhood trauma to stick-up-kid woes to walking out of a jail cell. Along the way, B.I.G.’s semi-autobiographical journey is soundtracked by Curtis Mayfield, “Rapper’s Delight,” Audio Two and Snoop Dogg. He then sets the scene with the following words: “I got big plans, n—a. Big plans.” That the intro kicks off with the beginning of life and the closer (“Suicidal Thoughts”) closes with a lifeless thud, speaks to why the album’s whole is just as great as the sum of its parts.

While this is that “other” record earlier mentioned, it’s arguably more slept on than the previous. Drenched in Jamaican rum and whiskey (a nod to the rapper’s family roots), this booming necksnapper finds singer Diana King on the chorus, as Big puts rhymes to what the autobiographical intro of the album sonically captures. Adding more layers, he recounts his time in the womb (“The doctor looked and said, ‘He’s gonna be a bad boy’”), hitting the streets (“School I didn’t show up/ It f–ked my flow up”), and pursuing his new career (“Not the same deranged child stuck up in the game”).

The boom-bap, XXX original seems more like a skeleton now compared to the fully fleshed out and polished R&B remix. Here, Big switches between his drunk and funk flows to kick game about his sexcapades — in raw, organ-shifting fashion. Where this version launches the campaign, the remix no doubt finds him as the player president.

“I’m doin’ rhymes now, f—k the crimes now, come on the Ave., I’m real hard to find now.” Producer Easy Mo Bee may be to blame for why Big was missing in action around the block at this time: According to the producer, it was in his car that Big used to spend time picking and playing beats as they drove around the neighborhood. This song happened to be one of those instances. Incorporating a guitar sample from 1970s funk band Black Heat, the record finds Big using every bit of space in this “bag of funk” to taunt and toast his counterparts (and jealous eyes in the “blue suits”) with his lyrical “rocket launcher.” Originally, Big wanted this to be the album’s first single. But executive producer Sean “Puffy” Combs wanted something smoother. We wonder how that would’ve turned out.  

Biggie brandishes his 360-degree storytelling chops here, producing a sonic soap opera that feels more Romeo & Juliet meets Natural Born Killers than its obvious Bonnie & Clyde influence. But what wins here is Big’s ability to be menacing, yet vulnerable and goofy at the same time. He’s clear that holding hands is not his style, but unashamed to use a daring Richard Pryor joke to profess just how much he’s attracted to his pistol-toting main squeeze —  a ride-or-die who isn’t afraid to lob his Timbs out the window or use his toothbrush to clean the toilet to send a message. The romantic dramedy takes a deadly turn in the end, but you can’t help but return to this campfire tale to hear Big tell it over and over again.

At its core, this song is a cry for help. While mental health is a much more common conversation today, back then the topic was taboo. In being unblinkingly forthcoming with his bouts of depression, Big put that conversation at the forefront. On this record, he’s clutching at straws, unsure of the silver lining amid the cloudiness of his reality. It’s one thing to “rob and steal because that money got that whip appeal,” but it’s a whole other to say “F–k the world, and my mom and my girl/ My life is played out like a Jheri curl.” But as nihilistic as it is, he still manages to lighten the mood with puns like “I got techniques, dripping out my butt cheeks.” In other words, life may be disputable, but the rhymes sure as hell are not.

In his ability to give listeners a front-row seat to the sweeping, harrowing reflections of his stress-filled world, Biggie paints a vivid portrait in this audio ride-along. It’s a record that reminisces on the good ole days — the summertime cookouts, block parties, neighborhood games of Ring-a-levio — and recognizes those times are over. The places that once held barbecues now contain bodies surrounded by chalk etches. In his dense reportage, Big gives a panoramic view of this stark reality: The chilling line, “Back in the day our parents used to take care of us, look at ’em now, they even f—king scared of us,” tells you everything you need to know about a reality that doesn’t seem all too different from the present day.

You can write a thesis paper on this record, which extends past the semi-autobiographical narrative of the album at large, to argue who exactly bested who. Just two seconds short of four minutes, Biggie and Method Man — the only guest rapper on the album — spread buttery lyrics over Easy Mo Bee’s gooey, hominy grits. Both emcees are barred up, lobbing some of the most illest-ly intricate rhyme schemes in rap, ever. What we end up with is a back-and-forth that rivals the best U.S. Open exhibition. Whether it’s Meth’s expert flip of Dickensian prose or Big turning a hiccup into a launchpad for the following display of lyrical ascent — “Excuse me, flows just run through me/ Like trees to branches, cliffs to avalanches” — you’re left feeling grateful this record even exists.

Every silver lining has a touch of gray. Beneath Ready to Die’s intermittent bouts of Moet-sipping, making money, and ripping the competition apart is living, teeming, raw emotion. Everything comes to a head on this pillow-soaked stress-turned-gun-inflicted-adieu. It’s the most uncomfortable record on this album, and in Big’s entire catalog. For all the threats he acknowledges throughout the album, he reminds us that sometimes the greatest threat of them all is the person looking back in the mirror.

If you ask Siri to play a song that sounds like ribs touching, this is probably what you’ll hear. The sheer desperation here is palpable. The fear conjured up is Hitchcockian. The callousness is frighteningly lucid. At the tattering edges of his own greed, Big exposes how far he’s willing to go, and the lines he’s willing to cross to relieve his money-hungry stress. By the third act, we get a poignant reminder of the album’s title: While history has often paid more focus to the “No. 1 Mom pendant” line, the vividness of “welts on the neck from the necklace stripping” leaves you clutching at your collar

DJ Premier was notably worried during this recording session. According to the beatsmith, Wallace and his entourage had been in the studio kicking it for hours. Drinks were had, blunts were passed around, girls were invited. The beat was done, playing over and over again in the studio, but there was one missing piece: Biggie. Though the rapper was present, Premier didn’t see him grab a notepad, paper, recite a line, nothing. Just when it seemed like it was time to close shop, the producer heard the following words, “I’m ready.” What transpires shortly after is, without question, worthy of its namesake: Big knew it, too, ending the last verse with, “Throw down some ice for the nicest MC, n—as know the steelo, unbelievable.” The illest.

This is the heart of Ready to Die. Here, we get a brutally clear snapshot of the conditions — Reagan era, poverty, crack, the ’94 federal crime bill — that made the Notorious B.I.G. “I know how it feels to wake up, f—ked up,” he raps, capturing the gravity of life at the tattered edges of the American underside and the by-hook-or-by-crook mentality that comes as a result. Though he’s rapping from his own Brooklyn-bred experiences, it feels universal. The line “another day, another struggle” is as much a relatable sentiment as “good morning.”

At its core, what makes this record shine is its honesty and vulnerability. Here, Biggie delivers his observations like a community organizer shooting the breeze with local residents on the stoop. From reflections on the urban decay around him (“I’m seeing body after body and our Mayor Giuliani/ Ain’t trying to see no black man turn to John Gotti”) to falling for the thrill of the drug game (“I had the master plan, I’m in the caravan on my way to Maryland/ With my man Two-TECs to take over this projects”) and more importantly understanding the plight (“They don’t know about your stress-filled day/ Baby on the way, mad bills to pay”), he turns in his story to make one thing clear: the struggle is very much real.

Whether at a wedding, cookout, block party, night club, dive bar — there’s no doubt that you (and your family) waved hands to this player’s anthem. This is the greatest rapper who ever lived showcasing his versatility in flawless fashion. He rapped with a pimp’s charm, two-stepping over late producer Chucky Thompson’s syrupy flip of the Isley Brothers’ “Between the Sheets” with Moët-sipping game. “Conversate for a few, cause we gon do what we came to do, ain’t that right, boo?” But before you could think his guard is down with all the ladies in the place, the burly bully quickly warns: “Still tote gats strapped with infrared beams.”

This is Quentin Tarintino-level rap. It’s one thing to paint a picture of violence, but it’s a whole other to verbally take listeners inside the heart-racing body and paranoid mind of someone who finds out the shadow of death is near but has the gall to say: not today. Here, Biggie’s lyrics operate like a motion picture camera, bursting with a panoramic array of extreme close ups and cowboy shots that plops you right in the center of the adrenaline-rushing predicament. The razor edged-tension gets sharper by-the-bar. From the pager ringing at 5:46 a.m. to getting word from “Pop” about the pocket-watching enemies, Big goes from frantic to sadistic in a matter of 94 seconds. “I f—k around and get hardcore, C-4 to your door, no beef no more.” Play the instrumental to this track anywhere, and you’re bound to hear someone fill in the story. No better sonic crime narrative exists.

“Spread love, it’s the Brooklyn way.” “Birthdays was the worst days, now we sip champagne when we thirsty.” “It was all a dream…” “If you don’t know, now you know.” The greatest song from the greatest rapper is a Webster’s Dictionary of phrases that are ingrained in our cultural lexicon. “Juicy” isn’t just the best song on Ready to Die, it’s rap’s greatest rags-to-riches tale.

Like many great emcees, Biggie had the special gift of turning the personal into universal. For a song that is essentially biographical, there isn’t a living being on Earth that does not feel somewhat connected to this story. The record is both dark and bright. In it, Big laments on the dark reality of the socially invisible and poverty-stricken Black communities while offering up an ethos of turning negative into positive. On an album reared by a world of violence and paranoia, this record is the silver lining. And it’s still all good.