Things Done Changed: 20 Things That Were Happening in the World When the Notorious B.I.G.'s "Ready to Die" Came Out

On the 20-year anniversary of the Notorious B.I.G.'s "Ready to Die," we look back on what was happening in the world at large.

By 
Sep 08, 2014
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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

This week marks the 20-year anniversary of the Notorious B.I.G.'s Ready to Die. The album hit stores Sept. 13, 1994, and helped launch Biggie to superstardom. The album wasn't just a big deal because the music was great, but because at the time it proved that East Coast rappers like Biggie could keep up with their West Coast counterparts like Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg who had also recently sold millions of records. This week Complex is looking back at the seminal classic, starting out with just how different the world was when the album dropped. Check out Things Done Changed: 20 Things That Were Happening in the World When the Notorious B.I.G.'s Ready to Die Came Out...

Written by Insanul Ahmed (@Incilin) & Christine Werthman (@CWerthman)


Listen to Complex's Notorious B.I.G. playlists here: YouTube/Spotify/Rdio

Gas cost around $1.15 per gallon.

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If that stat makes you want to cry, at least take some solace in the fact your car probably gets better gas mileage today than it would have 20 years ago.

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The rock world was still reeling from Kurt Cobain's suicide that April.

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To be perfectly honest, it still is. Rock hasn't had a legit superstar frontman since Cobain. RIP.

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Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino was the comeback kid on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

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He also starred alongside Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective that year, so you know he was killing it.

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It was the bag phone's time to shine.

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Don't worry, 20 years from now we're gonna look back at the iPhone like, “I can't believe we used to carry that around.”

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Boyz II Men ruled the Hot 100 with “I’ll Make Love to You” from August through November.

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And yet, they're still behind Jodeci on The '90s Male R&B Group Pyramid of Excellence.

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Car and Driver put the Ford Probe GT and its “good-looking body that steps out from the crowd” on its list of best cars of the year.

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We guess it looks cool, but most cars after the '70s all kinda look the same. It's why movie characters always drive '70s cars for no real reason.

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Cleveland Browns punter Tom Tupa became the first person in NFL history to score a two-point conversion.

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Turns out the American Football League had the two-point conversion for its first 10 seasons, but discontinued it when it merged with the National Football League. They brought it back in 1994 though.

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The Beastie Boys' Starsky-and-Hutch channeling “Sabotage” video was still in heavy rotation.

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As the years progressed the Beastie Boys made less and less straight up rap music, but they never stopped innovating.

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A new series called Friends was just about to debut in the time slot between Mad About You and Seinfeld.

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Yeah but Seinfeld >

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The New York Times declared, “Disney's 'Lion,' King Of the Summer Box Office”…

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Before Frozen came along, this was the last monster hit Walt Disney Animation Studios produced.

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And called Forrest Gump “an accomplished feat of cyber-cinema” for its special effects.

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Even if the special effects don't seem like much anymore, it's still a pretty great movie.

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The Butterfly was out. The Tootsee Roll was in.

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Give it a couple of years and we're sure Miley Cyrus (or someone of her ilk) will appropriate this and give it a new name and white people will be all about it.

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Prosecutors in the O.J. Simpson trial announced on Sept. 10 that they wouldn't seek the death penalty.

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If there was one name you heard a lot in 1994, it was O.J. Simpson.

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Time Magazine put the fear in us about killer microbes.

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Yup, they warned us about killer microbes. Not terrorism or global warming or you know, something that actually mattered.

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Congress signs off on the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, written by Senator Joe Biden, that bans assault weapons.

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Although it became known as the “Federal Assault Weapons Ban,” it did a lot more than that. It also provided $9.7 billion in funding for prisons, $6.1 billion in funding for prevention programs, and a 100,000 new police officers—leading Raekwon to rhyme the next year, "Mad police from Manhattan."

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Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley made out on stage at the MTV VMAs that month.

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And it was just as uncomfortable as it sounds.

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Nas and OutKast had both released their debut albums in April.

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But their reign was short like leprechauns, nah mean?

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Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo were the gaming consoles of choice.

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Do we really need to quote “Juicy” to explain how important it was to own one of these?

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Craig Mack's “Flava in Ya Ear” was at the top of the rap chart.

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Little did he know, he wouldn't “be around next year.”

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Newt Gringrich was just writing up the “Contract With America” to undermine Bill Clinton...and he was totally successful.

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By November, the GOP would win the House and the Senate, so we guess it worked.

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