This is Fresh Air, I'm Tanya Mosley, and this month we've been commemorating the 50th anniversary of hip-hop.

As any hip-hop fan will tell you, we can't talk about the genre, without including one of rap music's pioneers,

the late Christopher Wallace, better known as Biggie Smalls.

Wallace's album Ready to Die was an instant hit when it came out in 1994.

Rolling Stone recently named it the greatest hip-hop album of all time. Biggie recorded it when he

was just 22 years old, and it was his only album release during his lifetime. Biggie was murdered

16 days before the release of his second album, Life After Death. Joining us today to talk about

the life and legacy of the notorious BIG is journalist Justin Tinsley. He's the author of the book,

it was all a dream, Biggie and the world that made him. In the book Tinsley explores Biggie's life

in the context of not only rap, but the wider cultural and political forces that shaped him,

including immigration, Reagan-era politics, the war on drugs and mass incarceration.

Justin Tinsley is a senior sports and culture reporter for ESPN's Andscape. Justin, welcome to

Fresh Air. Thank you so much for having me, Tony. Thank you. Thank you for being here.

You know, taking a look at the cultural and political forces at play during Biggie's life

is such an interesting way to explore his impact. So the first album came out on September 13,

1994. That's ready to die. That was the same day as the 94 crime bill was passed.

When you put those two dates together and relisten to that album with that knowledge in mind,

what did you hear? Let me tell you, Tony, when I first found out that both of those things

happened on the same day, I was like, wow, like that is, that's a form of serendipity that I

wasn't expecting to encounter during my research process. So when you take the 94 crime bill and

you understand the discussion and the discourse that went around that bill and listen to the album

again, to me, it sounds like a rebuttal to that actual crime bill. Basically saying like, okay,

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