It was the first full-length album release from Bad Boy Records, a new imprint run by a young Sean “Puffy” Combs. “Ready to Die” is a concept album chronicling the life and myth of the Notorious B.I.G., complete with stories of robbery, drug dealing, sex and even suicide. And hours later he just jumped up and was like, ‘All right, I’m ready.’” Wallace would then step into the vocal booth and perform fully formed songs in only a couple of takes. One of the album’s producers, Easy Mo Bee, remembers also being impressed by Wallace’s ability to write the lyrics in his head while in the studio. “Already you had this kid from Brooklyn who was immediately, like Athena full-born out of Zeus’ head, a deity.”Īside from his delivery, rhyme patterns, humor and creativity, Wallace is known musically for his ability to craft a narrative in song. “He couldn’t have planned it like that,” Coker says. Christopher Wallace) stood on his stoop with hip hop journalist and future “ Luke Cage” showrunner Cheo Hodari Coker.Īs the two of them talked, they could hear what seemed like every passing car playing a different song from the album. But, he admits: 'It's an honor to be on this album.Just two weeks after his debut album “Ready to Die” was released, the Notorious B.I.G. songs are 'Juicy' and 'Big Poppa,' insists he doesn't discuss the album much because most people don't believe him. 'When I first found out about it, it wasn't a big deal to me,' said Yearwood, who hopes to be a basketball star and study sports management in college. All his relatives had posters with the album cover on their walls but it wasn't until he was 8 that it all sunk in. It was years before Yearwood was able to appreciate the sheer magnitude of his place in hip hop history. 'We still didn't know how big this was going to be.' 'We got a call from the agency saying he got the job,' Burns said.

Some potential jobs even wanted to pose him as a girl, his mom recalled. The agency, now closed, sent her and her then-infant camera ham to the casting, she told The News.īurns said it was tough to get her son gigs because of his full head of hair. Yearwood's mom Delcenia Burns, 43, took out stacks of baby pictures of her son at their Sussex County, N.J., home to show he's one and the same - and dug up papers from the child modeling agency Chicky's Kids to support her son's claim.

Notorious big ready to die album cover