Welcome to Week 11 of our Book (Album) Club! This weeks album is Ready to Die by The Notorious B.I.G.

Please give the album a fresh listen and give us your thoughts, opinions and possibly hot takes.

Doesn’t matter if this is your 100th time listening to the album or you listen to the album the first time right before posting!


December 5th: Sincerely, Detroit by Apollo Brown

December 12th: Unstoppable by The Reminders

December 19th: Gift Rap by The Cross Movement

December 26th: The Falling Season by Masta Ace

  • @[email protected]OPM
    link
    fedilink
    English
    3
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    Went with an undisputed classic this week, the 2005 remaster because that is the earliest version on Spotify. It is hard to pick, but personal favorite tracks are Things Done Changed or Hypnotize. I also have a soft spot for Big Poppa because it makes me think of the Keanu Reeves movie Hardball, which I love despite it being not actually very good. And Who Shot Ya? of course. This album has too many good tracks to make narrowing it down easy honestly.

    What is everybody else’s favorite tracks?

  • @[email protected]M
    link
    fedilink
    English
    310 months ago

    I’m not one to write shit up so I’m just going to tack on my favorite joints from the tapes in these threads. At least that’s some action ha

    Machine Gun Funk and Gimme The Loot for me. Probably just listened to the huge ones like Big Poppa/Juicy to many times so they fell out of favorite slots

    • @[email protected]OPM
      link
      fedilink
      English
      210 months ago

      listened to the huge ones like Big Poppa/Juicy to many times so they fell out of favorite slots

      This is for sure what happened to me with juicy. That was one of ~80 tracks on my MP3 player that I listened to FOREVER. That was like a decade ago but I still can’t enjoy it like I used to anymore.

  • @[email protected]OPM
    link
    fedilink
    English
    210 months ago

    Anybody else really love the opening Intro? Fast forwarding through his life, from birth to his current day, using the backing music to set when each thing is happening? Absolutely genius. One thing I really miss about the old era of Hip Hop was the use of intro and interlude tracks like this to set the tone, before the album really kicked in or before a certain song. That said, the Fuck Me interlude is the most awkward thing in the world. The headphones I use most around the house leak sound and my wife was wondering what the fuck I was listening to.

  • @JoeKrogan
    link
    English
    1
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    My fav on this has to be warning … That Issac Hays sample walk on by. The beat is simple but goes hard. Big showcases his story telling and just flows effortlessly how he usually does.

    For those that dont know DOOM also sampled the same track on lickupon.

    Also Wu Tang Sampled it in the song I can’t go to sleep. All bangers

    A DVD came with the album reissue and this live version of unbelievable came with it

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXZLIQ_Ke4o

    I always preferred the beat in this version to the album beat. Anyone know if there was a version recorded with this beat ?

    • @[email protected]OPM
      link
      fedilink
      English
      210 months ago

      That live video is sick. Hope you can find a recorded version with that beat, because you are right, that version of the beat is super good.