Every Song on The Notorious B.I.G.’s ‘Ready to Die’ Ranked
The Notorious B.I.G. was only 22 when he released Ready to Die. This is perhaps the most stunning fact about his brilliant debut: the fact that Biggie, at such a young age, constructed an album that was both grim and thematically compelling, in such an artistically and skillfully deft way.
In his prime, Biggie was probably the closest we’ve seen to a perfect MC. You’ve heard the clichés about his rapping style, but they’re all true: his brilliance lay in how he merged maximalism with intimacy, detailing vivid personal stories about the streets with an almost intuitive sense for sounds that resonate loudly. There was also no one better at being a neighborhood gangsta and a player at the same time.
Ready to Die dropped on September 13, 1994. It was one of the biggest rap releases of that year, dwarfing—in sales and arguably in impact—the debut of another supremely gifted MC from New York, Nas. Despite the album’s themes of pain, violence, and struggle, it was a massive hit, propelled by the crossover success of the Jean “Poke” Oliver and Diddy produced first single “Juicy,” a track that slyly tells both Biggie’s story and hip-hop’s evolution. The album’s success was further extended by the hit singles “Big Poppa” and the remix to “One More Chance,” which landed in 1995.
It’s still recognized as one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time, a crowning achievement for a young genre, and it forecasted trends in hip-hop we still see today—such as the use of R&B in hooks; the seamless transition between gangsta and playa personas; and a raw depiction of mental struggles.
For its 30th anniversary, we decided to rank all the songs on the original album. Note: we’re only ranking the tracks from the original release, not the remastered version, which includes “Who Shot Ya” and “Dreams,” along with some sample changes (what have they done to “Machine Gun Funk?”). The “ Stay with Me” remix to “One More Chance” isn’t ranked because it wasn’t on the original album. We also didn’t include the intro or interlude, which, while thematically important, are functionally very skippable.
Scroll down to see our ranking of Ready to Die below.
15. Friend Of Mine
Produced by: Easy Mo Bee
The earliest Biggie tracks featured a frenetic, raw energy coupled with diabolically dark humor. Over the years, Biggie—likely with Diddy’s assistance—smoothed some of that out. So by the release of Ready to Die, the flow had slowed, and the violence felt more grounded in reality, though Biggie still indulged in moments of wildness. “Friend of Mine” is one of those outbursts; it’s a 1992 Biggie song buried on a 1994 Biggie album. And because of that, it feels somewhat out of place, often being considered one of the album’s weaker tracks. (It’s the third to last track, which cements it as filler.)
But being the weakest track on a 5/5 masterpiece isn’t the worst thing in the world. The song itself is still solid, offering a level of humor and levity before we get to some of the darker moments in the album (it’s definitely funnier than the “Fuck Me” interlude). It’s crude, rude, and blatantly misogynistic, but that’s sort of the point, as Big—who would get married a month before Ready to Die dropped—dismisses the women who try to evade his personal space. And even lesser Biggie songs have lines that end up eternal— “Thug nigga ’til the end, tell a friend, bitch.” — Dimas Sanfiorenzo
14. Respect
Produced by: Jean “Poke” Oliver and Sean “Puffy” Combs
The one-two punch of “Respect” and “Friend of Mine” is often seen as the weakest part of Ready to Die. And considering we have both of those songs at the bottom, we agree with that assessment. With that being said, the disrespect of “Respect” has gone too far. The song features one of the most memorable opening verses of Big’s career, where he tells his origin story, sparkling in moments of hyperbole. The verse literally features him rapping from his mother’s womb. (A concept so compelling Nas would rip it off and turn it into a full song a few years later.)
Each verse in “Respect” highlights a different stage of Biggie’s life: the second stanza details the chaos he caused as a young teenager in the streets, and the final verse presents him as a developed, cynical early-20s New Yorker who’s had some success. (Always found the way he rapped “Mama smile when she see me, that’s surprising” to be so cutting.) The Diana King hook does age the song, but I think it should be forgiven. Biggie was Jamaican, and he traveled back to the Caribbean often as a youth. In a way, it’s the only song in his catalog that honors that part of his origin story. —Dimas Sanfiorenzo
13. Me and My Bitch
Produced by: Norman & Digga/Bluez Brothers, Chucky Thompson and Sean “Puffy” Combs
I’m pretty sure like 95 percent of the hate this song has received over the years stems from that one very specific opening line, which I don’t really need to repeat here. It might also be due to the fact that this song presents a rarer, softer side of Big, who shows dedication to his lady. Big being Big, however, can’t get too soft—the two are involved in criminal activities.
And like almost all of Big’s songs, the song ends on a downbeat note—Biggie’s lady is killed, with the rapper assuming the bullet was for him. Even when narrating a story of heartbreak, Biggie doesn’t alter his tough guy voice or demeanor; as an MC he never tried to feign emotion. Instead, he lets the details of his writing convey the depth of his feelings, particularly with some of the most emotionally vulnerable bars on the album:
“I saw my bitch dead with the gunshot to the heart And I know it was meant for me I guess the niggas felt they had to kill the closest one to me And when I find ’em, your life is to an end They killed my best friend.”— Dimas Sanfiorenzo
12. Ready To Die
Produced by: Easy Mo Bee
It’s a shotgun blast of a song, as raw and relentless as any moment on the most raw and relentless rap album ever made. It opens in media res, with Biggie holding a gun to the head of someone he is robbing. He makes you hear the release of the safety, the pressure of cold steel against your forehead, the trickle of sweat rolling down your temple as you contemplate what could be your last seconds on Earth.
Big never lets off the gas. It feels intentional this is the album’s eponymous track, a pure sensory nihilist death spiral. Even the vocals are rough, the track sounds like it was recorded in a high ceilinged hallway with Big a few steps away from a mic purchased at Radio Shack they haven’t quite figured out how to use yet.
It’s a pure sensory experience, primal and hungry. Easy Mo Bee tells the story of the first time he heard the most extreme line on the album: “Fuck the world, fuck my moms and my girl.” He couldn’t believe Biggie dissed his own mother while he was recording the first verse. But he also acknowledged it’s the work of a master manipulative writer knowing exactly what button to press to communicate his desperation to the listener. —Abe Beame
11. One More Chance
Produced by: Norman & Digga/ Bluez Brothers, Chucky Thompson and Sean “Puffy” Combs
We all know that the album version of “One More Chance” is vastly different to the more famous remix released to radio. So I’m going to use this space to apply one of my favorite activities, list making, to my favorite album. When we call Ready to Die cinematic, it goes beyond Big’s voice and his pen. The team followed the model of The Chronic and used the margins of the album—the intros, the outros, the skits—to build a world. The answering machine intro on “One More Chance” is up there with my favorite bits of ephemera on the album. Apologies in advance to a booty call classic, but here is a definitive ranking of the best voicemails on the “One More Chance” Intro:
4. Unnamed Angry Friend: Not clear what this person expects the call to accomplish, or exactly what Big has done wrong.
3. Quita: This is a legitimate gripe, and pretty brutal if we’re to take this hearsay as gospel, but not much imagination or panache on the message. Gotta spice it up if you want to stand out on this roster.
2. Stephanie: Now we’re talking, a real rollercoaster. She’s abandoned outside in a car? She’s in mortal danger? The tonal shift, starting out salty and ending sweet, is just masterful line delivery.
1.Tysh? (The audio on this is tough. I think the name is an abbreviation of “Tyeisha?” These characters were all allegedly played by Lil Cease’s sister and her friends. If anyone has perspective on this I’d love to hear it.):
Folks, this is how it’s done. Grownup business. She’s acknowledging the shift in attention, speaks with the tone of a person who has been out in the world and knows the ebbs and flows, that people are like seasons. Then has the confidence to suggest Big, in fact, is the one missing out, and she’s still interested if and when he comes to his senses. A plus, no notes. —Abe Beame
10. Everyday Struggle
Produced by: Norman & Digga/Bluez Brothers
When I got to make my own Biggie song ranking with an incredible crew of writers several years ago, “Everyday Struggle” came in at number one, not just for Ready to Die, but as what we considered the greatest song he ever made. The reason is because while songs like “Juicy” work as an origin story, as a message of uplift and perseverance in the face of adversity, “Everyday Struggle” is Big’s thesis.
It’s the song after “Juicy” on the album, and it’s hard to ignore the resonance of that sequencing. You’re coming off the high of this serotonin rush, one of the greatest singles ever made, engineered cannily by Puff for the mainstream and mass consumption, and Big’s first words that follow immediately are, “I don’t wanna live no more. Sometimes I hear death knocking at the front door.”
The song is a relentless laundry list of stressors, horrible things he’s had to subject himself and his loved ones to, threats that could lead to losing everything, his family, his freedom, his life. He’s essentially Ray Liotta on the track, rheumy eyed, drug addled and sleep deprived, staring up at the sky looking for a looming chopper, unable to wake up to the reality that these are no longer his circumstances.
It’s a reminder that you can escape your adverse upbringing and its hardships, but its trauma, the mentality it conditions in you, the world you emerge from are harder to escape. Tragically, that concept would prove to be prophetic in Big’s own life. —Abe Beame
9. Machine Gun Funk
Produced by: Easy Mo Bee
One of the most famous, and metaphorical artist/producer disputes in rap history has to be the disagreement between Big and Puff over what the first single off Ready to Die would be. It’s a lazy dichotomy: Puff wanted “Juicy,” the easily digestible origin story of a superhero over a perfect Mtume sample that communicates absolute victory dappled in Bed Stuy summer sunlight. Biggie stumped for “Machine Gun Funk.”
This narrative does a great disservice to Big, a genius whose creative process—eschewing pen and pad and introducing memorization, melded with improvisation and the quality of naturalization into his spit, is still probably the single most impactful technique based style of composition—and in his savvy, his understanding of himself, how to market himself, the idea of his music and artistry he wanted to communicate to others.
In these black and white terms, Big becomes the stubborn Yankee fitted and Timbs meme, demanding to keep it real while Puff tries to license “Juicy” for a Jordan ad. We’re shortchanging Big with this precious, limited recreation of history, so let’s restore this genius his dignity and attempt to see the potential he might’ve seen in the song as his opening salvo and mission statement.
Its interpretation of Something Extra’s “Black Heat” is downbeat, a morose mid ‘90s bummer. Biggie’s lyrics are stark and raw, but ultimately it works with “Juicy” as a dual narrative. Both songs are about a sinner who overcame great odds and had their life saved by music. But “Juicy” is the fairytale, and “Machine Gun Funk” is a mixture of diary, self flagellation, and tarot reading. It’s showing over telling, and suggests Big wanted to set expectations for the artist he may have become had he been given the time. —Abe Beame
8. Gimme The Loot
Produced by: Easy Mo Bee
Strictly speaking, there’s nothing funny about armed robberies. But Biggie makes a hell of a compelling case on “Gimme The Loot,” wherein he and a friend—himself—map out jux logistics with colorful low-brow humor fit for Def Comedy Jam. Over the course of three verses, Big’s two personas—one of which sounds like Colonel Stinkmeaner—take turns jacking easy marks, descending deep into the depths of pettiness as they make their way through a good old fashioned robbing spree.
Here, everything is fair game; Big and his partner are taking everything from door knockers to your high school class ring. They’ll take your shit, but not before telling you you’re doing just a little too much with your favorite fit: “Hold up, he got a fucking bitch in the car/Fur coats and diamonds, she think she a superstar.” It’s all threaded by both Biggie’s preternatural agility and an absurdist humor streak that, like his skillset, knows no bounds.—Peter A. Berry
7. Suicidal Thoughts
Produced by: Lord Finesse
Thirty years later, it’s still stunning that this song exists. “Suicidal Thoughts,” the closing track of Ready to Die, is one of the most jarring three minutes in hip-hop history. It’s a dreary, brutal track where Biggie channels all the frustration and negative energy he once directed at foes and scandalous women into himself.
While our culture has become more open to discussing mental health and rappers have increasingly addressed their personal struggles, this song—and some of Scarface’s contemporaneous work—gave listeners a raw, unfiltered depiction of inner demons that was uncommon for the times. It starts with an all-time powerful line: “When I die, fuck it, I wanna go to hell ‘Cause I’m a piece of shit, it ain’t hard to fuckin’ tell.” The track builds to a conclusion—“I’m sick of talking”—before a gunshot and you hear a body drops.
The song was produced by the criminally underrated Lord Finesse, who crafted something that manages to be cinematic yet stripped-down at the same time. In effect, it’s Big’s words and apathetic reading that does the heavy lifting. Really it’s hard to call a song like this “good” if your definition of good music is something fun to listen to. What I’ll say is that the song is abrasive and brilliantly constructed: being uncomfortable is a feeling too, and it’s a powerful experience to sit with it. — Dimas Sanfiorenzo
6. Unbelievable
Produced by: DJ Premier
When you pair up two rap legends at the peak of their ability, it’s really hard to fuck up, and this general idea remained true with “Unbelievable,” a DJ Premier-produced classic that easily lives up to its name. Big and Preem would only connect three times and “Unbelievable” is easily the cream of the crop
Recorded after the rest of Ready to Die was already submitted, the track sees Biggie in complete command of his own abilities, with his bullet-proof baritone and flow elasticity emitting emphatic authority. Each of his couplets carry the theatricality of a veteran showman: Has there ever been a better opening than, “Live from Bedford Stuyvesant, the livest one”? Of course, Preemo’s beat does work, too, with its heavy percussion being a wicked contrast from a winding vocal sample. Blending Christopher Wallace’s acrobatics with Premier’s sinister backdrop, it’s a dazzling commercial break amid an album that’s largely organized into themes—a rhyme showcase designed to show you that Biggie Smalls was the illest. —Peter A. Berry
5. The What Feat. Method Man
Produced by: Easy Mo Bee
Before Big traded bars with Jay-Z, he traded bars, on his debut, with the most popular rapper in New York—Method Man. Meth is the only feature on Ready to Die for good reason. At the time he was the breakout star, the matinee idol that had popped coming out of a nine man collective built on Times Square movie theaters showing double features of Kung Fu with Blaxploitation. (Meth also gets a shout on on “Friend of Mine.”)
Today, “The What” makes for a fascinating composition. The rizz is still wafting off Meth’s bars, but it generally serves as a contrast between tradition and modernity, with Meth’s fractured nursery rhyme and singsong stylings ceding the crown to Big’s straight spit. Method Man, at the top of his game, is quite simply blown out. It’s no knock to him, there wasn’t a rapper alive, then or now, who could hold a track with Big at this level.
“The What”’s secondary legacy is that it’s the probable catalyst for Raekwon and Ghostface Killah’s iconic Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… skit “Shark Niggas (Biters).” On the skit they come after Big, insinuating that he bit Nas’ Illmatic cover. It was a tension that fractured relationships amongst the elite tier of New York rap at the time. —Abe Beame
4. Things Done Changed
Produced by: Dominic Owens and Kevin Scott
One of the tragic triumphs of Ready to Die is that Biggie often sounds like he’s ready for the end to come, never more so than the opening cut “Things Done Changed,” a disaffected meditation on the once-friendly Brooklyn avenues that now threatened to swallow him whole. Here, Big excavates the block parties and project hallways that became shallow graves for lost innocence. His inflections are as harsh as his observations, with both evoking abrupt shifts in intensity and reality itself: “Damn, what happened to the summertime cookouts?/Every time I turn around, a nigga gettin’ took out.”
It’s all an exercise in juxtaposition—of sounds, themes, and spirit. Big laments the upsurge in firearms, but he sounds almost gleeful when it gets time for him to use one. He wants to exact revenge for a murder, but that has to wait; he’s got to hit the morgue to identify a body first. That push-pull mania emanates from the instrumental itself, too, as gentle harp flutters across hazy horns and pummeling drum kicks; it feels like the tornado that sent little old Dorothy from Kansas to the land of Oz—except there were no yellow brick roads in Crack Era Brooklyn.
“Things Done Changed” carries as much weight now as it did then because, well, things have changed once again. The BK Big speaks of now has been significantly gentrified, with New York itself being classified as one of the safest cities in America and Sweet Greens and yoga studios being situated on every corner. While there remain pockets of the struggle Big raps about, “Things Done Changed” is a collage of gunshots, broken bottles and treacherous alleyways Big used rap to escape from.
Ferocious, yet resigned “Things Done Changed” is Biggie at his most dynamic, rendering complicated truths and opposite aesthetics in perfectly discordant harmony.—Peter A. Berry
3. Big Poppa
Produced by: Chucky Thompson and Sean “Puffy” Combs
“Big Poppa” is the most joyful song on Ready to Die. The reality of success and money, and what it could do for the man and his family, is palpable on most of his other moments of triumph throughout the album. And while there are other songs about fucking, there is something specifically beautiful about this song in that its Big embracing the idea of himself as a sex symbol.
He’s still fat and lazy eyed, which he acknowledges audaciously in the opening lines, and remains realistic about his appeal throughout. He has money, he dresses well, he’s funny, he asks questions, he listens, he rolls with a crew of people you want to be around and does fly shit. But over that siren call, that howling whistle lifted expertly by Chucky Thompson, it’s a hell of a sales pitch. Big is never more comfortable, never slicker than he is at this moment. And it goes beyond material concerns—this isn’t a large TV or a cool car, it’s how success and wealth can allow you to adjust something as fundamental as your self image and how you interact with the world. The young man who can’t keep the quiver out of his voice when the girl he liked fucked his man D on “Friend of Mine” is gone. A playboy, and a star is born in his place. —Abe Beame
2. Warning
Produced by: Easy Mo Bee
Some things are so universally beloved that praising them feels too obvious. Beyoncé is a great performer. LeBron James has a high basketball IQ. But alas, that’s where we’re at with Biggie’s “Warning,” a narrative exhibition that essentially defines great rap storytelling as we know it. Ask any stubborn rap classicist why they respect Biggie, and they’ll mention his ability to paint a picture with words. And they’re right. Except Big is more Martin Scorsese than Pablo Picasso, writing and directing his own tales with an eye for tension and subtext.
For “Warning,” Big guides us through a tale of paranoia and impending danger, creating an entire criminal universe over the course of a few minutes. He raps from the perspective of himself and his friend, oscillating between the two identities for a narrative technique that’s more normalized now, but was revolutionary at the time. In a few bars, he shifts from a detailed warning to plotting the funeral arrangements for foolish enemies. At his best, he gets of delightfully vivid death threats as easily as his jokes: “Bet ya Biggie won’t slip/I got the Calico with the black talons loaded in the clip/So I can rip through the ligaments/Put the fuckers in a bad predicament.” It all could’ve been stilted, but it’s smooth as the Easy Mo Bee beat it’s grafted on. The bars flow into each other subtle humor and conversational ease—evidence of a rap auteur’s pristine directorial control. .—Peter A. Berry
1. Juicy
Produced by: Jean “Poke” Oliver and Sean “Puffy” Combs
Biggie might not have invented the rags to riches anthem, but he definitely perfected it. Released as the first single from Ready to Die 30 years ago, “Juicy” stands as the clearest vision of Big’s triple-beam lyrical dream—an underdog theme song that packaged a hustler’s soul in a top-40 radio song structure. The raps here are blunt as the Ls he used to roast in his “one-room shack,” yet they’re punchy and phonetically appealing enough to be indelible; at least four or five bars have become veritable cliches today: “And I’m far from cheap, I smoke skunk with my peeps all day/Spread love, it’s the Brooklyn way.”
Just as importantly, the rhymes contextualize the “everyday struggle” of being a Black man raised in the Reagan Era, collapsing the distance between hollow stereotypes and the aspirations of a bright, but mischievous ghetto boy: “We used to fuss when the landlord dissed us/No heat, wonder why Christmas missed us.” It’s all as raw as it is technically sharp—the cleanest hustler storytelling of his era. The lyrics themselves are poignant, but Poke from Trackmasters infused them with a luminous soundscape that made them immortal. Laced with a sample of Mtume’s “Juicy Fruit,” the instrumental is neonic R&B fit for a Barney sing-along. Ditto for the aspirational hook. Swirled with Big’s rhymes, it was New York’s counter to G-Funk—a new blueprint for commercial street rap on the East Coast.
Peaking at No. 27 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the track created a pathway for Ready to Die to become a double-platinum selling album that reshifted focus back to hip-hop’s birthplace. And, like we mentioned before, it was a song Big was unsure about. Despite the popularity of R&B in the ‘90s and the fact rappers loved those types of beats, there were still concerns about coming across too soft on wax. Big ultimately followed Diddy’s lead here and you can’t argue with the results. Before “Juicy,” Biggie was a promising upstart with potential to be more. After its release, we got a rap savior. If they didn’t know, now they did.—Peter A. Berry
