Christopher Wallace was a Brooklyn drug dealer, and, if his early interviews are to be believed, not a very nice one. Luckily, this was not his signal accomplishment. On Ready to Die Wallace took his street corner experiences and filtered them through his considerable charm. The result was a record that mixed long stretches of menace (“Things Done Changed,” “Everyday Struggle”) with romance (“One More Chance”) and lots of humor. No rapper ever made multi-syllabic rhymes (“Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis/ When I was dead broke man I couldn’t picture this”) sound as smooth.