Notorious B.I.G. releases 'Mo Money Mo Problems' posthumously

Why it matters

"Mo Money Mo Problems" came out as a single July 15, 1997, from the posthumous Life After Death. Stevie J produced. Diana Ross's "I'm Coming Out" (1980) is the sample. Notorious B.I.G., Puff Daddy, and Mase rap the verses. The song spent two weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. With "Hypnotize" having already hit #1 earlier that year, Biggie became the first artist in popular-music history to score back-to-back posthumous number-one singles. The combined achievement is one of those records that exists because of the worst possible reasons; Biggie had been dead for four months by the time "Mo Money Mo Problems" topped the chart. The song itself is buoyant, danceable, Diana-Ross-disco buoyant, fundamentally a celebration record about how it feels to have made it. The cognitive dissonance between the joy of the song and the death of the artist who recorded it is one of the most uncomfortable things about late-1997 popular music. You can dance to it. You can also be sad about it. Most people end up doing both.