XXL Making of Ready To Die

[Traumatized]

Does anybody have the whole article and could put scans up?

[music is like magic]

i might who is on the cover or what month i got almost all the mags

[Larrabee]

I don't have a scanner, but I'd be willing to type that shit out, if you really need it

[TuKer Says: Angeles Records is the truth!!]

I havent read that article neither, that would be an interesting read, if you can type that shit, i'll really appreciate it

[Traumatized]

I don't have a scanner, but I'd be willing to type that shit out, if you really need it

That would be great, though it makes a lot of work. I'd appreciate it.

[Westcoastin']

Its a good article......i dont usually buy XXL but i figured it'd be worth it. 

[D1G1T4L]

someone post it up?

[music is like magic]

if you fellas know who on the cover i can put it up but if not then type the shit out damn. and ill look to see who on the cover.

[music is like magic]

any fucking way here is some of it.

1 "Intro"
Produced by Sean "Puffy" Combs

Easy Mo Bee: The whole story line for the album--starting in the beginning when you hear the robbery happening on the train and "Rapper's Delight" in the background and everything--that was Puff's concept: to create a story line for the album. He just gave me a list of records that he wanted and I brought them back to him. He said he wanted "Rapper's Delight," Audio Two's "Top Billin'," "Superfly." We had "Got To Give It Up" by Marvin Gaye, [but it got changed] probably for sampling reasons. Songs that explain their era.

"Prince" Charles Alexander: First of all, I'm the father on the intro. There are all these voices on the intro. That "Wilona, what the fuck you doing? You can't control that goddamn boy!" That was me. And the guy at the end, the guard that lets them out of jail and says, "You'll be back," that's me also. And the reason that they used me is because three guys had gone in and tried, I forgot who. I was there, Puffy was there, Biggie was there. I was engineering and a couple of guys who were just hanging around went in and tried to do that part. And they're like very stiff-sounding: "God damn it, Wilona." And I'm like, "Yo Puff, I am an angry Black man. You should let me try that." I went in there and I screamed. I mean, Goddammit, Wilona! What the fuck you doing?! I was way, way up in it. They fucking rolled. They loved it. They kept it. That was one of the things that kind of helped me to bond with the whole project. 'Cause I'm about 10 years older than Puffy, so I was really professional. I had a really professional vibe. So when I went in and did that, that really broke a whole lot of ice.

  2 "Things Done Changed"
Produced by Dominic Owens and Kevin Scott

Lil' Cease: That was one that was most played in the car. Big loved that song. There was no particluar story behind it. It was more of a song that had a concept behind it rather than a story itself. Biggie made it to represent Brooklyn. To show how he grew up, how we grew up. He wanted to show what he was accustomed to and the lifestyle he was used to. It was one of the very first ones made. Whenever you make a track of that nature, with lyrics so real, it stands out.

  3 "Gimme The Loot"
Produced by Easy Mo Bee

Easy Mo Bee: When he did "Gimme The Loot" I was like, Whoa--dude's got problems! People who wanna battle him, go up against him? Nobody's gonna wanna battle this cat. If you heard everything he said in his lyrics, you won't live. I remember very clearly that that song was done during the daytime. It was still light outside. Junior M.A.F.I.A. was there. I ain't never really worked with nobody that really spit that hard before. So when I was in the studio, I was like, "Yo, man you sure you ain't sayin' too much?" And I remember Cease and Chico sittin' back and sayin', "Yo, Mo, just chill! You sensitive!" I was like, "I just wanna make sure we get sold. I don't want no records getting snatched off the shelves." That's my whole thing. I guess that was their [definition] of being "sensitive."

Maybe Puff didn't necessarily respond to me at the time when I came to him and presented [my concerns] to him, but I remember telling him, "Yo, the shit about being pregnant, and the 'Number One Mom' pendant? Yo, be careful with that. Because you could have all kinds of Christian rights and women's rights organizations trying to pull your stuff down off the shelves and all that." At the time, Puffy kind of brushed it off. And I just walked away in my mind like, all right. But I guess later it made sense to him--even without him coming back to me. 'Cause [that lyric] got blurred out. So it worked out the way it was supposed to.

[As far as Big rhyming the two different characters' voices], he went in the booth and then it just kind of happened. He just started doing it. He would do one voice, then come behind and do the other one later--just like, leave a gap so he could come back and fill the spaces. I was like, Yo, that's creative! And he really had cats fooled. Even just last year, I was around somebody who was playing that, and still after all this time he was like, "Yo, who was that--that was Puff?" I was like, "Man, y'all really can't hear that? That's him! He did two voices." That just shows you how good he was.

Mister Cee: I clearly remember "Gimme The Loot," because I did the scratches on it. Remembering that is like yesterday. I used Kid Hood's verse from A Tribe Called Quest's "Scenario (Remix)." And how I did the turntables and made the word "Bad, bad, bad" from turning the knob off on the turntable from pressing the stop button. Each time that I brought the record back, it's a different effect to where you turn the knob off on the turntable to where you stop the turntable. You get a different effect on the record. So when you bring it regularly it's like, "Bad." Turn the knob off, "Baaad"--slower. Press the button, "Baaaad"--slowest.

  4 "Machine Gun Funk"
Produced by Easy Mo Bee

Easy Mo Bee: Biggie picked that beat in my car. I had this green Acura, and we used to ride around Brooklyn. Like Fulton St. and St. James where he lived. I'd pick him up off the stoop where he lived. It'd be me, him, D.Roc, Lil' Cease, Chico--as many as we could--ridin' around in the car. We'd just ride around and just blaze and listen to beats. And that's how he picked a lot of the beats. But the actual session for "Machine Gun Funk"... It's vague to me, to be honest. Let's put it like this: There was some hazy years. I'm a changed man now.

Chucky Thompson: Big was crazy. He was just in there with some socks on and some boxer drawers--'cause it was really hot--doing his rhymes. That's when he was actually writing stuff down. He didn't take long at all. It was like he knew what he wanted to say. He'd be in there chilling, smoking or whatever and then he'd write two words, and then he'd go back to chilling and write two more words, and then he'd go in the booth.

  5 "Warning"
Produced by Easy Mo Bee

Easy Mo Bee: The significant thing about "Warning" is--and I'm definitely not trying to diss him, he put me on the map, he's the first I ever worked with, so total respect to him--but that beat was offered first to Big Daddy Kane. I remember him sittin' in my crib, and I was playing him beats. I forget the album at the time that he was doing. And you know Kane was always into the Barry White, Isaac Hayes thing. So I did this joint off of Isaac Hayes, and I'm just feelin' it. I'm feelin' myself. I just know he gonna love this. This is the vibe. But he was like, "Play the next beat." I was like, "Yo, hold up, man. You sure you don't want that? That's Isaac Hayes!" He said, "You heard what I said, play the next beat."

So I just kept the beat and held onto it. A few months later when it was time to play Big beats, I played it for him. Aw man, Puffy went crazy! He went crazy, like, "Yo man, this is it!"

[TuKer Says: Angeles Records is the truth!!]

^^ dope, could you put up the rest please, thanks

[Larrabee]

Finally found the damn magazne, heh...I'll just type out everything after "Warning", give it about half an hour or so...

[Larrabee]

06. "Ready To Die" - Produced by Easy Mo Bee

Easy Mo Bee: Again, here we go with the 'sensitive' part. When Big said, "Fuck my mom...", when he said "Fuck the world, fuck my moms and my girl", I was like "Damn! Okay, maybe 'fuck the world'. Maybe 'fuck your girl', but 'fuck your moms?!" We all know he didn't literally mean that. Anybody knows that. That was just his whole intensified approach to explaining just how much he felt. He was ready to die. It was just an emotional expression. But again, when he said stuff like that, I was like "It's like I'm working with Ice Cube!" Amerikkkaz Most Wanted? I was like, Brooklyn's Most Wanted! I'm sure Cube and N.W.A. and stuff like that had a profound effect on him. I'm sure in some type of way, he was influenced by that stuff. At the time, we all were.

07. "One More Chance" - Produced by Norman & Digga \ Bluez Brothers, Chucky Thompson & Sean Puffy Combs...Additional Vocals by Total...Instruments by Chucky Thompson

Lil Cease: My sister did the interlude for "One More Chance" - with all the girls on it. The other girls on it, that's just my sister's friends. My little niece, she did the intro part before "One More Chance": 'All you hoes calling here for my daddy...' It was just people that was just around. If you're around and he need you - "Yo, I need a hook done."

"Prince" Charles Alexander: "One More Chance", I remember specifically. That song has a piano figure that goes 'ba-bu-da-na-na-na-na'. One of the things I did is, all the way through the song there are two parts of that piano figure, and the second part I had to keep riding, so I had to raise the level. So it's like 'ba-bu-da-na-na-na-na' and louder, 'ba-bu-da-na-na-na-na'. So that it would be the level of the first song. And it was a request. Puffy actually asked me to do that, because it was a sample, and he didn't want the sample to sound just like it had sounded before. He wanted a nuance. He wanted something that had its character in the Bad Boy world. It was little stuff like that he was requesting that really gave Bad Boy a sound. I remember him turning to me and saying 'Do you think we have a sound?' This was after the "Flava In Ya Ear", after Biggie came out, and I think we were moving onto Faith. And Puffy turned to me and said, 'do you think that we, meaning Bad Boy, have established a sound?'

Digga: Puff was in my ear every 10 seconds in the session. When me, Big, Cease and Klept and some of the crew was in the studio it was all good. But once Puff came on the scene everything got tight. At the time, Puff was still learning about production and he wanted to show that he knew something about music. He wanted certain arrangements. And I was looking at him like, 'What the hell is this guy talking about?' We'd listen to him for half a second, then we'd be like, 'Yeah, whatever.'

08. "Fuck Me ( Interlude )" - Produced by Sean "Puffy" Combs

Lil Cease: We were just trying to put some personality and just some comedy and some sense of humor to it. Him and Lil' Kim did it. What they did was, there was a piano in the booth of a studio we was working in, it was in Daddy's House. It had the piano and the chair to the piano. Big is heavy, when he sit on something, you hear it creak, that's that shit when there's too much weight on that shit. And he just told Kim to sit on top and he just like started rocking her.

Chucky Thompson: That was crazy, 'cause they kept laughing. There was even sicker takes that we couldn't use 'cause we all kept laughing. But she was tearing his ass up. They were in the booth with the lights out. We didn't know what that little bed noise was. Somebody said "What the hell is that noise?" He was like "It's the piano stool." He was sitting on there, shaking it.

09. "The What" - Produced by Easy Mo Bee \ Featuring Method Man

Method Man: My relationship with Big was cool. When I seen him, it was always love. Even if the rest of my niggas ain't fuck with him, I fucked with him. 'Cause it was like, 'Well that's how they feel - I don't necessarily feel that way about you and shit.' It was always on speaking terms - we smoked blunts and shit. We almost got bagged smoking some weed at the airport in North Cackalacka. Word. The guy came over, we all lit up cigarettes. But that's a long story right there...he was a funny muthafucka too - make you laugh all fuckin' day, man...It was no secret: Rae didn't like him, Ghost didn't like him. They thought he was a biter. But if you look at Rae and Ghost, they don't like nobody! The rest of my niggas had love for Big. It was just Rae and Ghost. The other niggas had no problem. You can't hate a nigga for doing his thing. It's ridiculous. But there were moments where they in the house, and we in the house. And my niggas, it's like we're a unit, we moved as a unit. So where if one of my niggas ain't speakin', then nobody was speakin'. And we would just roll by a nigga, walk right past. But Lil' Cease can vouch for this, and my niggas can vouch for this - I ALWAYS stopped to give a word to Big. No matter what. There was a show at Shelter, I think that was the name of the place. And he had performed, and Wu-Tang had performed that night, and Yo Yo performed that night too. Outside the club Big approached me and shit. Like "Yo, I wanna do something with you on my album." I was like "Alright, yo, just make it happen. I'll come through and shit." I knew Tracy Waples, and she was tight with Puff and them - she works for em now, she hooked everything up. I went through that night, kicked it for a while and shit - that's when I found out he was a funny nigga, 'cause he had me crackin' up. We puffed some blunts, Mo Bee threw on the beat. He was like, let's just grind this shit out. We wrote our verses. We was both in the same spot, writing our verses together. The way he ended his verse - he wanted me to start my verse with "T.H.O.D." because he ends his verse with "You can't fuck with M.E." So that's why my verse starts out with "T.H.O.D. man..." But it didn't actually come out that way. You can't hear it, because I am over the top of him. If I would have rhymed over him, it wouldn't have been on the beat. When I left, we didn't have no title for the shit, but it was a tight-ass song. I couldn't care less about the title, because at the time, Wu-Tang songs never had a title that had anything to do with the song. Like the hook could be "Yeah nigga, kill nigga..." But the title of the song would be "Death In Current's Wake Of Absence To The Third Power" or some shit.

Easy Mo Bee: I remember Meth came to the studio. I was the producer, but I was being a little groupie, like 'Oh, shit! There go Method Man over there!' Knowing this nigga's gonna blow, and we bout to be big here. Just taking it all in, man. Just loving it for the moment that it was. When I heard the chorus "Fuck The World - Don't Ask Me For Shit", I was like 'okay, this definitely ain't going on the radio'. Again, like I was saying, I guess there was that whole "sensitive" part about me. Then, I went again worrying - "Yo, man...we gonna sell records? I don't want them to pull it down off the shelf, man. This nigga's dope, man. We can't mess this up.' Again, Lil Cease was like 'Yo Mo, chill, you sensitive!' That's Lil Cease. My man. He gets the 'sensitive' credit! "The What", I titled that song. That took me back to two years before, when I was recorded with Miles Davis. Because Miles was a hardly-talk, express-his self-when he wanted kind of guy. You'd be talking to him and he'd just go "Hmm." I once asked Miles what he wanted to name a song - and we had already recorded about three or four songs - and he was like "I don't know, name 'em whatever you want to." With "The What", the song was done and everything, and Big, Puff and me was standing there. And I remember Puff in particular was like 'Yo, what we gonna call this shit?' And I told him 'Yo I nickname all my beats on the disc that I saved them to, so I know what each disc is." I wrote on the disc, "The What", Puff was like, "Yo, that shit is cool."

Method Man: A lot of quotes off that record have been used in hooks for other artists records. I want my money, ya'll bitch-ass niggas! I got paid $2,500 for 'The What'. And I had to hunt Puffy down for my $2,500. It took like 2 months to get it. I was like 'C'mon Puff, stingy bastard, give me my money!"


*I'll post the rest up hopefully by tomorrow. Shit's hella long, hahaa.

[TuKer Says: Angeles Records is the truth!!]

props man

[Larrabee]

no problem, anytime. I dunno, if you or anyone else is interested, I can do the same for the making of: Life After Death, All Eyez On Me & The 7 Day Theory albums...I collect all the XXL's, so whatever ya'll need, let me know.

[TuKer Says: Angeles Records is the truth!!]

yeah man all that shit would be dope to read, im interested, if you dont wanna type that shit, you can throw us a good quality scan