The Making of ‘Ready To Die': Family Business

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.

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