Life After Death, the Notorious B.I.G.'s second album, was released on March 25, 1997 -- sixteen days after his murder in Los Angeles. A double album, Life After Death showcased Biggie's flexibility and adaptation skills by pairing him up with some of the biggest producers in hip-hop. The RZA, DJ Premier, Easy Mo Bee, and Kay Gee joined Sean "Puffy" Combs in the creation of Biggie's magnum opus.
The lead single was "Hypnotize," which was notable for being the final music video to feature original footage of Biggie. In fact, his final interview took place on the set of the "Hypnotize" video, where while toying with the cane he was required to use in his recovery from the car accident that fractured his leg, Biggie mused on Tupac Shakur's death and his own role in heightening the coastal tensions that most assumed led to that fateful night on the Las Vegas strip.
Notable tracks on the album include "Ten Crack Commandments," wherein Biggie lays out the rules one needs to follow in order to become a successful home-pharmaceutical manufacturer and distributor, "What's Beef," a violin-laden description of true animosity and vendetta, "Notorious Thugs," a track featuring BONE Thugs-N-Harmony which displays how well Biggie could adapt his rhymes and flow to best fit the style of his collaborators and producers, and "You're Nobody (Till Somebody Kills You)," the final track on the album and more than a little prophetic:
You can be the shit, flash the fattest five,
Have the biggest dick, but when your shell get hit
You ain't worth spit, just a memory...
Spiritually, Life After Death is Biggie's last album. Unlike Tupac, who would enter the studio with notebooks full of verses already written and ready to record absent any kind of backing tracks or production, Biggie preferred to work closely with his producers, writing and tweaking lyrics around a beat. This style of recording left very little unpublished material in the vault after his death. While Born Again was released two and a half years later, it was constructed piecemeal from scraps of abandoned recordings and rehashed remix verses, utilizing a myriad number of producers and resulting in a discordant, jumbled sound.
In my entirely subjective opinion, Life After Death is one of the five greatest hip-hop albums ever. Listening to it, one can hear a definite narrative thread, a darkness that pervades throughout. It lurks in the background on the upbeat "Sky's The Limit" and playful "#!*@ You Tonight" and takes center stage on "Kick In The Door" and the haunting "My Downfall."
Biggie's death birthed a vacuum in hip-hop, one that so far has proven impossible to fill due in no small part to this album. With the bar set so high, with no significant later work to detract from its greatness, even legends like Jay-Z and Nas struggle to live up to the legacy Life After Death bestows upon them. In death, Biggie has ensured himself eternal life.
Note: Originally, the album's full title was Life After Death (Till Death Do Us Part). The subtitle was removed for unknown reasons in later pressings.
Track Listing
Disc One
- Life After Death Intro
- Somebody's Gotta Die
- Hypnotize
- Kick in the Door
- #!*@ You Tonight
- Last Day
- I Love the Dough
- What's Beef?
- B.I.G. Interlude
- Mo Money Mo Problems
- Niggas Bleed
- I Got a Story to Tell
Disc Two
- Notorious Thugs
- Miss U
- Another
- Going Back to Cali
- Ten Crack Commandments
- Playa Hater
- Nasty Boy
- Sky's the Limit
- The World Is Filled...
- My Downfall
- Long Kiss Goodnight
- You're Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You)