So the first song on this debut album of Biggie's "Ready To Die" - it starts first off with Biggie being born. MOSLEY: Let's explore a little bit more what you mean by that. Like, it's so bad out here that we're telling anybody who'll listen, that, like, I am ready to die to escape the circumstances that I've been given. And when you're listening to the album, like, these are the things we're trying to survive. Like, this is - these are the things you're trying to curb. This is what paranoia looks like - that you can't find in the actual verbiage of the '94 crime bill. But I'm going to give you the perspective of being an inner city kid. Basically saying, like, OK, we understand how Washington and Congress and, you know, so many other levels of government view these inner city kids. So when you take the '94 crime bill and you understand the discussion and the discourse that went around that bill and listen to the album again, to me it sounds like a rebuttal to that actual crime bill. Like, that is - that's a form of serendipity that I wasn't expecting to encounter, you know, during my research process. TINSLEY: Let me tell you, Tonya, when I first found out that both of those things happened on the same day, I was like, wow.
When you put those two dates together and relistened to that album with that knowledge in mind, what did you hear? That's "Ready To Die." That was the same day as the '94 crime bill was passed. So the first album came out on September 13, 1994.
You know, taking a look at the cultural and political forces at play during Biggie's life is such an interesting way to explore his impact. JUSTIN TINSLEY: Thank you so much for having me, Tonya. Justin Tinsley is a senior sports and culture reporter for ESPN's Andscape. He's the author of the book "It Was All A Dream: Biggie And The World That Made Him." In the book, Tinsley explores Biggie's life in the context of not only rap, but the wider cultural and political forces that shaped him, including immigration, Reagan-era politics, the war on drugs and mass incarceration. Joining us today to talk about the life and legacy of the Notorious B.I.G. Biggie was murdered 16 days before the release of his second album, "Life After Death." Biggie recorded it when he was just 22 years old, and it was his only album released during his lifetime. Rolling Stone recently named it the greatest hip-hop album of all time. MOSLEY: Wallace's album "Ready To Die" was an instant hit when it came out in 1994.
Salt-n-Pepa and Heavy D up in the limousine. THE NOTORIOUS BIG: (Rapping) It was all a dream. As any hip-hop fan will tell you, we can't talk about the genre without including one of rap music's pioneers, the late Christopher Wallace, better known as Biggie Smalls. And this month we've been commemorating the 50th anniversary of hip-hop.
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