“I watched Biggie give away ‘Ready to Die’ and thought he was crazy,” he told Vlad TV. It seems unlikely that any of today’s young rappers would be found pushing copies of their records from their homes, but Biggie did just that back in the ‘90s, according to Busta Rhymes.

You could get a copy of the album by visiting Biggie’s Brooklyn house These days, they just seem quaint compared to the VR machines he could have rapped about in 2019. Later, he adds a “ 50-inch screen, money green leather sofa” and “ a limousine with a chauffeur” to his list, but it’s those initial picks that haven’t stood the test of time. “ When I was dead broke, man, I couldn’t picture this.” The track detailed the rapper’s rise to the top, with those two games consoles listed as luxuries beyond his younger self’s wildest dreams. “ Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis,” raps Big on ‘Juicy’. But that wasn’t always true – Method Man told Complex in 2011 that the late star had once shown him the lyrics to ‘The What’ as he was writing them, specifically the line “ I’ve got more Glocks and tecs than you/I make it hot, n****s won’t even stand next to you.” Part of the folklore surrounding ‘Ready To Die’ paints Biggie as a rapper who had no need for a pen and paper, memorising his bars and delivering them off the top of his head instead. Contrary to popular belief, Biggie didn’t always freestyle the lyrics That honesty added an extra grit to ‘Ready To Die’ that means its still one of the most real portrayals of thug life in hip-hop. kept things real when it came to describing his life as a drug dealer, making sure to include the downsides of trapping, like the threat of being caught by the police or running into issues with other dealers.

On Friday (September 13), it celebrates its 25th anniversary, so what better time to look back on some of the record’s more surprising elements. Since its release in 1994, it’s inspired countless rappers in Biggie’s wake and secured his legacy as a raw and real storyteller. The Notorious B.I.G.‘s ‘Ready To Die’ – his only album released in his lifetime – is widely considered to be one of the greatest rap albums of all time.

Notorious big ready to die album