"Juicy"

Notorious B.I.G.
(Bad Boy/Arista, 1994)

This made Big Poppa large, with good reason: he flips English around as if it were a willing groupie ("Birthdays was the worst days, now we drink champagne when we thirst-ay") and sounds genuinely amazed at all his good fortune. It's a flash of R&B sunshine, contextually ironic and painful on the otherwise dark-hearted Ready To Die album (which ends with Biggie committing on-record suicide); none of the B.I.G. memorials is a harder listen.

-- Alex Pappademas