He can brag about Benjamins but still weave his hyper-realized Goines tales about a rapper who can still get gutter when need be. It starts immediately, with Biggie declaring in an aside: “Puff won’t even know what happened.” Just because Big has graduated from crack to records, don’t think he’s above getting blood on his hands. This is crucial because Biggie uses this premise to deliver an array of imaginative gems. Though it’s certainly a fictive version of himself, we’re meant to believe this is the Notorious B.I.G. The point’s clear: the young man has made it and his eyes face forward, not back. Before the knock at the door that will launches the story, Big dreams of private planes and platinum sales. The last album closed with Wallace haunted by nightmares of wrongs committed to his mother and baby’s mom - a traumatic, unshakeable impoverished past. While the earlier narrative takes place over the phone, this bearing of bad news occurs in person, and Biggie milks the moment for all its paranoid drama. The immediate precursor is “Warning”, with its 5:46 AM disorientation and confusion. It’s late at night, and a visitor brings bad news. The story that opens Biggie’s opus has familiar beginnings. “Somebody’s Gotta Die” is an ideal place to begin the discussion. It’s no coincidence that Big’s new-found calm allows him to exhibit godlike control over the worlds created on Life After Death. Here, Wallace’s technique is elevated to a level of mastery. This is where Wallace often receives criticisms when people assess the two disc sophomore effort.

In comparison to the claustrophobia of the first album, one can’t help but feel a sense of remove. Life After Death is a kaleidoscopic showcase of an artist only beginning to understand how to flex his prodigal abilities. As previously discussed, the album’s conclusion signaled an end of a certain urgency in Wallace’s narratives. Ready to Die was an exhilarating and terrifying walk in Biggie’s shoes, his Invisible Man, his Bigger Thomas. It’s hard not to see this arc playing out in Christopher Wallace’s brief body of work.

As the writer matures and spends his personal capital, the focus centers on craft: ironing out dialogue, developing character and story. You can guess what Abe Beame’s Spotify looks like.Ī natural progression for great young writers often includes an apprenticeship based on autobiographical material and intense emotion.

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