Not everything is so dark, though ' production collaborations result in some upbeat, commercial moments, and typically cop from recognizable hits: 's 'I Want You Back' on the graphic sex rap 'One More Chance,' 's 'Juicy Fruit' on the rags-to-riches chronicle 'Juicy,' and ' 'Between the Sheets' on the overweight-lover anthem 'Big Poppa.

The album is also sprinkled with reflections on the soul-draining bleakness of the streets - 'Things Done Changed,' 'Ready to Die,' and 'Everyday Struggle' are powerfully affecting in their confusion and despair. A sense of doom pervades his most involved stories: fierce bandits ('Gimme the Loot'), a hustler's beloved girlfriend ('Me & My Bitch'), and robbers out for 's newfound riches ('Warning') all die in hails of gunfire. Yet, no matter how much he heightens things for effect, it's always easy to see elements of in his narrators and of his own experience in the details everything is firmly rooted in reality, but plays like scenes from a movie. He's blessed with a flair for the dramatic, and slips in and out of different contradictory characters with ease.

The new rap star from New York became the person who could finally bring the fame back to the East Coast hip-hop from the leading West Coast. His raps are easy to understand, but his skills are hardly lacking - he has a loose, easy flow and a talent for piling multiple rhymes on top of one another in quick succession. Two weeks later, the record ran double platinum, exploding a bomb in the American hip-hop society.

Notourious big ready to die zip