The Notorious B.I.G.

While just three years passed between the Notorious B.I.G.’s two proper albums — Ready to Die and the aptly titled Life After Death — the rhyme-slaying MC was already a massive pop star when he was murdered in 1997. A quick tour of his most timeless tracks is all it takes to understand why, from his debut appearance on a drum-riding Mary J. Blige remix (“Real Love”) to a pair of crossover cuts that grabbed a bubbly beat from the Isley Brothers (“Big Poppa”) and a galloping groove (“Juicy”) from a slow-burning Mtume single that’s also been sampled by Snoop Dogg, R. Kelly, and Keyshia Cole. As for our Next Steps, they're about as subtle as a bat to the head by Joe Pesci — all but confirming that Biggie's the Godfather of hardcore rap.

Forget The Godfather and Goodfellas for a minute. After all, they’re just movies; the Notorious B.I.G. was the real deal, a former drug dealer who lived and died by the unwritten rules of Brooklyn’s meanest streets. That’s why his rhymes read like a true crime novel, a book-on-tape soundtracked by snappy drums and heart-sinking strings (“What’s Beef”), boom-bap breaks and glassy R&B choruses (“Unbelievable”), and sample-happy blends of James Brown and such hip-hop icons as Ice Cube, Gang Starr, and A Tribe Called Quest (“Gimme the Loot”). And what’s that down in our Deep Cuts? Biggie killing a verse for Michael Jackson? Yep. And that’s just the beginning of what’s in store . . .

As if we didn’t already know he’s one of the greatest MCs in the game, the Notorious B.I.G. has literally taken on a life after death with such beyond-the-grave guest spots as his scene-stealing “Victory” cameo and a piano-plowing appearance on the King of Pop’s final album, Invincible. Not to mention Biggie’s entire Born Again album, a seamless collection of posthumous cuts that slaps unreleased rhymes on top of lean drum loops (“Dead Wrong”), a trio of old B.I.G. tracks (“Rap Phenomenon”) and a neck-snapping new-school remix of a long-buried jam from 1993 (“N***as”).

Hip-hop lost a living legend when the Notorious B.I.G. was gunned down in 1997, just sixth months after his bitter rival, Tupac Shakur. Biggie wasn’t just an East Coast icon; Brooklyn’s finest was one of the game’s greatest MCs . . . period — a former drug dealer who painted pitch-dark portraits of the ’hood he ruled by the tender age of 20. And then there was his music itself, Diddy-driven slabs of heavyweight breaks and crowd-pleasing samples that brought the streets to the suburbs with such chart-clobbering singles as “Mo Money Mo Problems,” “Hypnotize,” “Been Around the World,” and “It’s All About the Benjamins." In the late ’90s, you couldn’t flip on the radio or MTV without hearing their heat-seeking hooks, and come to think of it, they’re still blasted at clubs and block parties today. So in the words of Biggie himself, “If you don’t know, now you know . . .”