It may have taken
the Notorious B.I.G.
a few years to follow up his milestone debut,
Ready to Die
(1994), with another album, but when he did return with
Life After Death
in 1997, he did so in a huge way. The ambitious album, intended as somewhat of a sequel to
, picking up where its predecessor left off, sprawled across the span of two discs, each filled with music, 24 songs in all. You'd expect any album this sprawling to include some lackluster filler. That's not really the case with
, however. Like
2Pac
's
All Eyez on Me
from a year before, an obvious influence,
Biggie
's album made extensive use of various producers --
DJ Premier
,
Easy Mo Bee
Clark Kent
RZA
, and more of New York's finest -- resulting in a diverse, eclectic array of songs. Plus,
similarly brought in various guest rappers --
Jay-Z
Lil' Kim
Bone Thugs
Too $hort
L.O.X.
Mase
-- a few vocalists --
R. Kelly
Angela Winbush
112
-- and, of course,
Puff Daddy
, who is much more omnipresent here than on
, where he mostly remained on the sidelines. It's perhaps
Puffy
himself to thank for this album's biggest hits:
"Mo Money Mo Problems,"
"Hypnotize,"
"Sky's the Limit,"
three songs that definitely owe much to his
pop
touch. There's still plenty of the gangsta tales on
that won
so much admiration on the streets, but it's the
-laced songs that stand out as highlights. In hindsight,
couldn't have ended his career with a more fitting album than
. Over the course of only two albums, he achieved every success imaginable, perhaps none greater than this unabashedly over-reaching success.
is a milestone album, for sure, but it's nowhere near as extravagant or epic as
. ~ Jason Birchmeier