DISCLAIMER: These won’t be proper reviews -as if I could write those- or have interesting technical tidbits on them. These are more of a “ah, that song reminds me of…” thing. Like the part you skip on a recipe. So it goes.

Album: Life after death.

Release date: March 25, 1997.

Track: 4.

Moods: Time to throw some shade!

“That’s Herp Albert!” said the voice, waking me from my nap.

“Huh?” I haphazardly remove the crust in my eyes.

“The song those two idiots are talking above. That’s Rise from Herp Albert.” said my dad. I focused my eyes and the tv was playing Hypnotize. Below, a black bar was announcing he was dead.

“It’s a sample, they paid for it” I said, while recomposing myself. “It says he’s dead”.

My dad didn’t say anything else and left the living room. Dang. Shot dead? He was so young.

It’s weird discovering a musician after they passed away. There’s a creeping sense of guilt for not checking their stuff beforehand, but that’s life, I guess.

It would take me five years to get Life after death. Rap albums were notoriously expensive in Mexico and I never got around to buy it. Besides, two editions. Single disc and double disc. Which one to get?

The answer came in 2002. It was my third week living in Nottingham, and that “it’s all new” feeling was still intoxicating. Every corner had a new story, every sight was a fresh beginning. So when I eventually ended up in Victoria Centre, I moseyed to the usual destination: a record store. HMV had plenty of stuff on sale that day, as it was Fresher’s week. Time to squeeze a few quid out of students, national and overseas.

I went for the double album, as it was cheaper that the single disc edition. Turns out the single disc was censored, and the double album was the uncut version. Both friends I was with that day tutted at me. “A rap album? Why?”

Well, why not? Sometimes you just gotta accept that a particular genre you like won’t be everybody’s cup of tea. Metal lovers probably are more aware of this than Indie fans. So it goes.

I would be lying if I said that I love Life after death. Although the majority of the tracks are stone cold classics, there’s a lot of filler. I’m not a fan at all of the inclusion of R. Kelly and that particular song, which I won’t even bother typing, aged terribly.

Still, my fave track was Kick in the door. Biggie’s delivery is perfect, as usual, and his storytelling technique was always the hook for me. Sure, samples and interpolation make or break a rap song, but what made Biggie a nautical league above everyone else was his flow, always copied, never equaled.

Strangely enough, Kick in the door is a song I don’t listen as often as I want to. When I do, I think I should play it more often. It comes and goes into my life, often in weird situations.

The weirdest one was in Austin, during SXSW 2014. I had a bathroom emergency and I ended up in a public bathroom. The person on the stall next to me was listening to Biggie when I arrived, and after a long while spent there (damn you, delicious Texas BBQ and your gut clogging properties), two cops entered the bathroom. They went straight to the stall next to me, knocked on the door, yelling “we know you’re there!” and kicked it down, dragging the guy out, his cellphone falling to the ground, the battery coming lose and Biggie suddenly going silent.

The cops asked if I was ok. I opened the door and explained my situation. One of them offered a Tums while his partner handcuffed the guy on the other stall. They left and I was there, stomach rumbling in desperation, a cherry red Tum in my hand, the cellphone battery still on the floor.

Life sometimes is like that.

—Sam J. Valdés López