With the success of "Ready to Die," the rapper has put drug dealing behind him but retains the dealer's constant fear that his life is in danger. "One thing I learned about the game is when you get a lot of money, niggers don't like you," he said. "I'm getting more money now."

Every time the front door of the apartment building opened, he leaped up to see who was climbing the stairs. On this day, there were a pair of black 9-millimeter Rugers under the mattress in his bedroom. "I'm not paranoid to the point where -- " He paused. "Yes, I am. I'm scared to death. Scared of getting my brains blown out."

His fear is hardly unjustified. Last month alone, two rappers -- Tupac Shakur and a member of the Wu-Tang Clan -- were shot in what the police described as robbery attempts. Still, Biggie Smalls doesn't let fear dominate him as his Apollo performance and its aftermath attest. "I got to see what's going down, where the party's at," he said. "I can't live my life in no bubble."

THOUGH MANY RAPPERS exaggerate about the lives they led before becoming performers, some are actually former drug dealers. Few have ever been as open in detailing their criminal past as Biggie Smalls, and none have ever been as clear about the pain they felt at the time. "He doesn't want anyone to see that he's not as tough as he thinks he is," said Ms. Wallace, the rapper's mother. "He cries inside. He bleeds inside. But he doesn't want anyone to see the vulnerable side of him."

"Ready to Die" is, indeed, marked by pathos unusual not only in hip-hop but in pop music. "In street life you're not allowed to show if you care about something," said Mr. Combs, of Bad Boy Entertainment. "You've got to keep that straight face. The flip side of that is his album. He's giving up all his vulnerability. He's letting you know how he has felt about his mother. He's letting you know how he cried. How he has thought about killing himself."

Though drug dealing carries tremendous heroic value with some young urban dwellers, he sacrifices the figure's romantic potential. His raps acknowlege both the excitement of drug dealing and the stress caused by the threat from other dealers, robbers, the police and parents, sometimes one's own. In presenting the downside of that life, "Ready to Die" offers perhaps the most balanced and honest portrait of the dealer's life of any in hip-hop. "He's trying to enlighten people to the way your mind thinks when you're broke, when you're young growing up and not feeling like nobody cares about you," Mr. Combs said.