Biggie‘s original tracklist for Life After Death has surfaced, revealing several unreleased songs and a few surprise collaborations.
The tracklist, which was unearthed by the Instagram account 92 Bricks, stems from a January 1997 listening party for the now-iconic album, which was originally titled Life After Death… Til Death Do Us Part.
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At the event, there were 28 tracks played, four more than the 24 that appeared on the final version (although one song appears twice on the original tracklist which may have been a printing error, suggesting the album was originally 27 songs).
The original tracklist features not only a completely reworked order but five songs that have yet to be heard by the public. These include “Once Upon a Time” featuring Fat Joe, “Stayin’ Alive” and untitled tracks produced by RZA, Easy Mo Bee and DJ Clark Kent.
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There is also a song that didn’t make the final cut called “Spanish Fly,” although this is most likely an early version of the track of the same name from Black Rob‘s 2000 album Life Story.
Several songs that did appear on Life After Death are listed on the original tracklist under different names, with “Comin’ Out” featuring Ma$e becoming “Mo Money Mo Problems” (which sampled Diana Ross’ “I’m Coming Out”), “Bones Track” becoming the Bone Thugs-N-Harmony-assisted “Notorious Thugs” and “Mo Bounce” becoming “Going Back to Cali.”
The tracklist has not been independently verified by Biggie’s estate or Bad Boy Records.
Fat Joe has previously spoken about collaborating with Biggie before his untimely death in 1997, claiming that they once planned to record an entire album together.
What’s more, the project was supposed to contain diss songs aimed at B.I.G.’s then-rival 2Pac.
“You know I say stuff, Tim, and they always say I lie or I say too much,” he said to Timbaland over Instagram Live in 2021. “You know I worked on an album with Biggie? We cut about five songs together.
“He was like, ‘You the Latino don, I’m the Black don.’ And we was in that studio going crazy. It’s verified by Puff Daddy and everybody.
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He added: “I’ma keep it real: at the time, we were dissing 2Pac a lot and all that, and so that should have never seen the light of day. Which is respectfully so, because you know they both passed on. But yeah, I worked with the B.I.G. for real.”
