12/28/2022 0 Comments Life after death biggie review![]() ![]() 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. ![]() In a culture where the lives of young, black men have become increasingly expendable, it's now necessary to state what once seemed obvious: Biggie Smalls did not want to die.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. There's a haunted sadness to the sung refrain, and beneath it a spoken plea is audible: "I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die. Phone callers' issue threats: "I'm gonna kill you," "We comin' for you." On the closing "You're Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You)," Smalls' world-weary delivery indicates that he considers the song title to be a perverted joke. He acknowledges a vulnerability that verges on paranoia in "My Downfall," swathed in mournful strings and neo-operatic female voices: "Before I go to sleep, I check the bed and the closet." Kelly, in preborn-again mode on You Tonight."īut near the end of the disc, Smalls is no longer the playful rogue, the marauding hustler prowling his ghetto kingdom. 1 on the Billboard pop charts on the strength of a mesmerizing party single, "Hypnotize." There's more raw fun in the "Hypnotize" vein with cameos by Too Short, Lil' Kim, Puff Daddy, Angela Winbush and R. Instead, Smalls and Combs have made a disc packed with hook-filled arrangements that straddle the worlds of hard-core hip-hop and mainstream rhythm and blues - even before Smalls' death, the disc almost certainly would have made its debut at No. But Smalls also avoids petty tit-for-tat posturing there are no putdowns of his late verbal sparring partner Shakur, no words to fuel the purported rivalry between East and West Coast. ![]() Too many tracks settle into pimp-gangbanger cliches with numbingly explicit language, casual misogyny and, in two instances, homophobic references. "Life After Death" has its share of filler. ![]()
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