Mar 14, 2016
A few weeks ago, Adam from the Driving in the Dark podcast kindly sent us an intriguing and convincing email on the virtues of rap music, pointing to The Notorious BIG's Ready to Die (1994, Bad Boy) as a great example of a singular vision executed with precision that would definitely benefit from the Great Albums treatment. So we immediately invited him to join us in a discussion. Adam turned out to be a well of knowledge about rap artists and the history of the genre's development over the last 40 years. On this podcast, we chronicle Adam's first experiences with rap music and this album before recounting how Christopher Wallace (AKA Biggie Smalls) went from teenage hustler to one of rap's most respected icons. Adam spends a lot of time kindly explaining the art of rap to Bill as the latter challenges himself with an album from a genre he doesn't have much experience with. During our track by track review of Ready to Die, we also discuss the function of narrative in rap, the evolution of Biggie's deep, smooth flow, the glorification of violence, literal interpretations of what rappers do on their albums, Brian's taste in rap music, Biggie's humor, his development as a pop songwriter, the unique choice of shout outs, the hypocrisy and contradictions present on the lyrics all throughout the album, juvenile sex skits, Biggie meeting Michael Jackson, and make sure to listen the fatigue we all push through as we have one of our longest conversations ever!