Neha Patil (Editor)

Life After Death

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Length
  
109:12

Label
  
Bad Boy

Released
  
March 25, 1997 (1997-03-25)

Recorded
  
September 1995 – January 1997

Genre
  
Gangsta rap, mafioso rap, hardcore hip hop, dirty rap

Producer
  
Deric "D-Dot" Angelettie, Carlos "6 July" Broady, Buckwild, Clark Kent, Sean "Puffy" Combs, Stevie J, DJ Enuff, DJ Premier, Easy Mo Bee, Havoc, Jiv Poss, Daron Jones, Ron "Amen-Ra" Lawrence, Kay Gee, Nashiem Myrick, Notorious B.I.G., Paragon, Chucky Thompson, RZA

Life After Death is the second and final studio album by American rapper The Notorious B.I.G., released on March 25, 1997, on Bad Boy Records. A double album, it was released posthumously following his death on March 9, 1997. It features collaborations with guest artists such as 112, Jay-Z, Lil' Kim, Mase, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Too $hort, Angela Winbush, D.M.C. of Run-D.M.C., R. Kelly, The LOX and Puff Daddy. Life After Death exhibits The Notorious B.I.G. further delving into the mafioso rap subgenre. The album is a sequel to his first album, Ready to Die, and picks up where the last song, "Suicidal Thoughts", ends.

Contents

The album was nominated for three Grammy Awards in 1998 including Best Rap Album, Best Rap Solo Performance for its first single "Hypnotize", and Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for its second single "Mo Money Mo Problems".

Life After Death has been considered by music writers as one of the seminal mafioso rap albums, along with Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... (1995), AZ's Doe Or Die (1995), Jay-Z's Reasonable Doubt (1996), and Nas' It Was Written (1996), as well as a landmark in hip hop music. In 2003, the album was ranked number 476 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

Background

Two and a half years before the album's release, The Notorious B.I.G. who had married Faith Evans, became East Coast's icon in the East Coast vs. West Coast rivalry and made guest appearances on albums by Jay-Z and Luther Campbell amongst others. The album was supposed to be released on Halloween in 1996, but was pushed back to 1997. Two weeks before its release, on March 9, The Notorious B.I.G. was shot four times in a drive-by shooting and was pronounced dead at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Critical reception

Life After Death received widespread critical acclaim from many critics upon release. Jon Pareles of The New York Times described the album as "flaunting affluence with a leisurely swagger, midtempo grooves and calmly arrogant raps". Anthony DeCurtis of Rolling Stone magazine called it a "conscious continuation of Ready to Die", and stated "Life After Death captures crime's undeniable glamour but doesn't stint on the fear, desperation and irretrievable loss that the streets inevitably exact". Cheo Hodari Coker from the Los Angeles Times wrote that "Life After Death reflects both the dark and the heartfelt sides of the rapper's Gemini personality. It's not only a complex testament to who he was in his private life, but also a demonstration of his amazing rhyming ability. In key moments, B.I.G. does a marvelous job of surfing between accessible music fare tailored for the radio, and more challenging material that will be savored by hard-core rap fans who have long admired B.I.G.'s microphone skills. Rarely has a rapper attempted to please so many different audiences and done it so brilliantly". Although David Browne of Entertainment Weekly was unfavorable of the album's long length, and some of its violent and materialistic content, he commended Notorious B.I.G.'s "bicoastal respect" by working with other hip-hop styles and artists from other regions of the United States.

Retrospect

Since its release, Life After Death has received retrospective acclaim from critics. Rob Sheffield, writing in The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), called it "a filler-free two-disc rush of musical bravado" and commented that the Notorious B.I.G.'s voice and lyrics were "deeper" than before. AllMusic's Jason Birchmeier wrote, "It may have taken the Notorious B.I.G. a few years to follow up his milestone debut, Ready to Die, with another album, but when he did return with Life After Death, he did so in a huge way. The ambitious album, intended as somewhat of a sequel to Ready to Die, picked up where its predecessor left off." Birchmeier further said, "Over the course of only two albums, he achieved every success imaginable, perhaps none greater than this unabashedly over-reaching success." Evan McGarvey of Stylus magazine wrote in his review, "Life After Death is a grand exercise in personal mythology, narrative sweep, and truly diverse, universal pop excellence. As a double album it is the very definition of cinematic; it essentially perfected the concept and standard in hip-hop ... Sequenced as an unpacking of sorts, the album's progression from song to song is an essay itself." In 2013, VIBE named Life After Death the greatest Hip-Hop/R&B album since 1993.

Accolades

  • The information regarding accolades is adapted from Acclaimed Music except for lists that are sourced otherwise.
  • (*) signifies unordered lists
  • Commercial performance

    Life After Death was released to a significant amount of critical praise and commercial success. The album sold 690,000 copies in its first week. In 2000, the album was certified Diamond in sales by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and it has been credited as one of the best-selling rap albums of all time. It also made the largest jump to number one on the Billboard 200 chart in history, jumping from number 176 to number one in one week. Also, it spent four weeks at number one on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and topped the Billboard Year-End chart as a Billboard 200 for 1997.

    Legacy and influence

    Though released in the wake of B.I.G.'s fatal shooting, Life After Death signaled a stylistic change in gangsta rap as it crossed over to the commercial mainstream. After the release of Life After Death, Puff Daddy's Bad Boy Records continued to bring pop and gangsta rap closer together: the references to violence and drug dealing remained, as did the entire "gangsta" rhetoric, but the overall production style changed from the previously darker sound to a cleaner, sample-heavy, more upbeat sound that was directly fashioned for the mainstream pop charts, as seen in the single "Mo Money Mo Problems". The Notorious B.I.G. is often credited with initiating this transition, as he was among the first mainstream rappers to produce albums with a calculated attempt to include both gritty and realistic gangsta narratives as well as more radio-friendly productions. The majority of the album was produced by Steven "Stevie J" Jordan, Deric "D-Dot" Angelettie, Carlos "July Six" Broady, Ron "Amen-Ra" Lawrence, and Nashiem Myrick. However, other notable hip-hop producers such as Easy Mo Bee, Havoc from Mobb Deep, DJ Premier and RZA from Wu-Tang Clan contributed beats to the album as well.

    Various artists were specifically influenced by songs on Life After Death. Evidence's "Down in New York City" is essentially "Going Back to Cali" from the perspective of a West Coast hip hop artist. Jay-Z borrows four bars from "The World Is Filled..." in his song "I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)", as well as the chorus from his song "Squeeze 1st" from "Hypnotize", a line in "The Ruler's Back" from "Kick in the Door" and "You're Nobody ('Til Somebody Kills You)" on "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)". Ice Cube borrows the chorus from "Kick in the Door" for his song "Child Support". As with B.I.G.'s "I Love The Dough" Monica's 2010 song "Everything to Me" samples "I Love You More" by René & Angela. The official remix includes a verse from B.I.G. that originally appeared on "I Love The Dough". On their RCA album, Release Some Tension, the R&B trio SWV sampled the song "Ten Crack Commandments" for the opening track, "Someone", which features B.I.G.'s former protege and friend Combs, which was released five months after his death. The French rapper Rohff named his album "La Vie Avant La Mort" (Life Before Death) (2001) as a tribute to B.I.G.; the album has sold 350,000 copies.

    Track listing

    Credits adapted from Life After Death liner notes.

    Note

  • ^[a] – co-producer
  • Sample credits

    References

    Life After Death Wikipedia