My name is DANJ! and the The Notorious B.I.G. is my favorite MC of all-time. I need y’all to feel me on this right now…
Maaaan, lemme tell y’all. When he was just the big guy with the gold fronts in that SuperCat video talkin’ ’bout “I love it when ya call me Big Poppa/ The show stoppa/ The rhyme droppa…”, I was rockin’ with that crazily. When I listened to DJ Celo‘s Saturday Night Megamix on WKYS in April ’93 and heard “Party & Bullshit”, I went out and copped the Who’s The Man? soundtrack the following week. When I’d read The Source and see how much they bigged him up, I had the feeling he was gonna be one to check for. And when Ready To Die dropped… well sheeeit, the rest was history.
I touched on this a lil’ bit in my previous (and highly slept-on *plug*) entry on RTD back in September, but it extends way further than that. Between ’93 and ’97 (and even after his death), this was an MC whose every guest appearance was an automatic must-hear situation for me. There were a lot of lyricists I listened to, liked, and respected at the time. Aside from the “Golden Age” of the late-’80s, it was probably hip-hop’s most competitive era. But as much competition as there was, Big was always on top of his game. Even in his earlier years as I listened to him, I’m not even sure I had any idea how much of a legend he was gonna become.
When it came to the lyrics, what couldn’t this nigga do? Sure, there’s some stuff he didn’t do, but I don’t even doubt he coulda done that shit too. There’s a lotta dudes who try hard to be all things to everyone (and usually fail miserably), and then there’s some who can only go in one direction. B.I.G. (like most of my favorites) was both a pure spitter and an artist who made great songs all in one. He could drop some radio shit one second, then do some go-hard lyrical shit the next, then get on some cinematic story shit- and have none of it come off like he was reaching. It’s never been the easiest task in the world, proven by the very short list of others who’ve successfully done the same, but he did it. Regularly.
Being that I was rhymin’ myself, I was always heavy into lyrics, especially memorable lines with that rewind factor that made me wanna hear ‘em again. And when it came to B.I.G.’s rhymes, I stayed runnin’ shit back. Sometimes it was just his wordplay like “Hot 97 rhyme-ready/ Cocked Mac-11 lined steady/ Like Tevin Campbell, I’m ready”. Other times, it was punchlines like “I’ll make your mouthpiece obese like Della Reese“. Blasphemy like “I’m Jesus‘ pops, Mary just blamed Joseph“. Totally ig’nant, dirty shit like “I got a bitch that suck my dick til I nut/ Spit it on my gut and slurp that shit back up”. Even the little brief shock-value stuff, like “shoot ya daughter in the calf muscle”. Shit was crazy across the board.
Another great thing about B.I.G. is that he stayed steppin’ it up. Once he became a star, he coulda easily done what a lot of MC’s do once they get to that point, and got lazy. But even as he was goin’ multi-platinum, guest appearing on TV shows, and even collabing with Michael Jackson- he was consistently gettin’ better. Matter fact, the last verse he ever recorded was his appearance on Puffy‘s “Victory”, which is also one of his greatest and most-quoted ever. That one in particular, to me, is a testament to how driven he was to continue bein’ a great lyricist. Whether he had hit singles or not, he stayed well-aware of what got him that far. It’s a mentality that almost seems foreign now, when niggas can proudly say shit like “I’m not a rapper”, but it was obvious that he took pride in his craft.
The week after Biggie died, it just so happened that he was on the cover of the new issue of The Source, which of course I copped right off-top. In that article, his determination to elevate on all levels was clear. Even while saying that he was only in music industry for the money, he was even more adamant about makin’ sure his skills were acknowledged. He actually cared about things like how he’d never been featured in the “Hip-Hop Quotable” section of the mag, and talked about how he wanted to be known as the greatest ever. Two weeks after that, Life After Death dropped, and that was my official soundtrack… not just during that spring break (when it was literally the ONLY thing me and my brother Erin listened to), but for the rest of ’97.
B.I.G.’s music represents a lotta shit for me. It reps my high school years, it reps why I wanted to be an artist myself, and it reps part of the reason why you couldn’t pay me to be 15 years old right now. More than anything, it reps why I loved hip-hop back then. Not certain rappers, not certain songs- HIP-HOP- the whole thing, and anything that had to do with it. Surely, that doesn’t just begin and end with him, as there were many others who represent that as well. But for today, even as I was loadin’ these songs, that’s what it brings me back to.
I bought his albums, even them posthumous “made-up shits” that I’m not too crazy about. I remember wearin’ out the original Best of Biggie mixtape by Mister Cee back in ’95. I bought the (great) book on his life, Unbelievable by Cheo Coker. I even watched the damn movie like 40 times. Does that make me a “Stan”? Who the hell knows. All I do know is that prior to his death, 13 years after it, and as of what would’ve been his 38th birthday- Biggie Smalls was (and is) the illest.
“Microphone Murderer ” (Demo) (1991)
“Come On” (feat. Sadat X) (1993)
“Dreams (I’m Jus Playin’)” (1993)
“Machine Gun Funk” (DJ Premier Version) (1994)
“Juicy” (Pete Rock Remix) (1994)
“Real Niggas Do Real Do Things” (1995)
“One More Chance” (Remix feat. Total) (1995)
Junior M.A.F.I.A. feat. B.I.G. “Get Money” (Remix) (1996)
Tracey Lee feat. B.I.G. “Keep Your Hands High” (1997)
Puff Daddy feat. B.I.G. & Busta Rhymes “Victory” (1997)
“Dead Wrong” (feat. Eminem) (1999)
-D!
Eff it, DANJ! I AM a Stanley when it comes to BIG. I cosign this piece b/c I love what BIG was about. He was all about his own evolution and growth. I loved that he spoke of how he had grown, and wasn’t trying to make another Ready To Die when he made Life After Death. What really made me a believer was when he took Bone’s style in Notorious Thugs, and had the hottest verse on it. That cat was the G.O.A.T.
True… it seemed like dude stayed tryin’ to get to the next level. Kinda “on to the next one” in terms of his approach, changing with the times while not bein’ a follower… he was one of the artists makin’ the sh*t that others were following.
-D!
Got Damn Danj!! You did the damn thing with this here!!! Im cosigning the hell outta this here with you and Mark. Whenever I hear a Biggie song, I have to sing alone. It’s like breathing. I enjoyed learning all the words and trying to figure out the word play. He kept my attention. He made rap interesting. It wasnt all about bang bang, let’s fuck shit that was going on. Big always had a story to tell. Like I said before, the art of storytelling died with him. I am a Big stan. He is the fucking best. I killed ppl in arguments about him and Pac all the time. LOL
‘Preciate it! I was just tellin’ somebody recently, I miss the stories. You got a couple here and there who’ll do it, but it’s def. not a thing lots of people do anymore. BIG always had great ones… so did Nas, Scarface, Black Rob, Kool G Rap, KRS, Ice Cube, and of course Slick Rick. There’s some who I think could go in like that, but it’s not even a thing that gets much attention anymore because the importance of the lyrics has declined so much. Niggas barely wanna follow a verse, let alone a story where you gotta actually listen for the whole 4 minutes, lol.
-D!
Yup, i co-sign this entire post. BIG was huge for me, especially with his Jamaican background. His wordplay was insane. He ate up Meth on RTD and Meth was supposed to be the superstar dem times.
I almost choked a bitch, when she told me BIGGIE was WORSE than 2pac and Kanye. o_O
I know the entire song to “Juicy”, Puffy wouldn’t have me running to Juniors.
Right! And the thing w/ BIG is that he didn’t even use a lotta super-complex words or anything like that, but he was easy to understand and the way he put the shit together was crazy. That’s what people mean when they talk about how great of a lyricist he was. I recently had a dude try to debate me on some “his vocab was limited” shit- just came off like he was one of those easily-impressed-by-multisyllabic-words type niggas, lol. Dude actually said B.I.G. couldn’t touch Lupe Fiasco lyrically and that B.I.G. wasn’t a lyricist, and nor were 2Pac, Ice Cube, or Scarface. Whhhat? After a while, I just let that dude go ‘head and be a dumbass… some people you can’t save.
-D!
Who said Biggie aint versatile? 2 words……Notorious Thugs.
True… and it’s wild how after that, every other East Coast rapper who’d never fukked with that flow before started tryin’ to do it too. Jay pulled it off, but most of ‘em? Nnnnnnah!
I flipped when I heard that joint… couldn’t believe it.
-D!
GOAT, and youre right about the storytellin dyin, you got your conscious rappers(black thought, common, nas), freestyle rappers(wayne, andre 3000), rappers that are nice with the pen(kanye, TI, drake), and wack rappers(gucci, waka, soulja)
but nobody saying anything meaningful(conscious rappers are meaningful but boring) i think these rappers have the skill to do it, they just are lazy…
Yeah… it’s kinda like a lost art, and an unappreciated one at that. Even if people started doin’ it again, it’d take some adjustment on the part of the listeners to start valuing shit like that again. Lupe tells ‘em sometimes, Fab had a good one on his last album, but it’s few and far between for sure.
-D!
“Sure, there’s some stuff he didn’t do, but I don’t even doubt he coulda done that shit too.”
hahaha, straight up!
True shit… like, if BIG ever opted to go in a more ‘conscious’ route, I don’t doubt he coulda done that too. Or even the super-complex wordy shit, he prob’ly woulda had no prob doin’ either.
-D!
loved the post and i love Big. I ride by Fulton and St James everyday and I wonder witch brownstone or building he lived in…..
Ayyy Lexie- glad you dug it… that’s why I do this!
Yeah, I def. remember your post on your blog about BIG. Huge part of that era for sure, and especially as a NYer, I’m sure you remember how major that whole BIG/Bad Boy presence was back then. Great times…
-D!
You have to hit us up if you ever come to Brooklyn we can do a tour of my favorite rappers streets… From Big to Joel Ortiz…. It would be ridiculously fun
TRUE- it would be! And Junior’s cheesecake too (no Da Band), haha.
-D!
I concur, to the nth degree! You are not alone in this. In fact, I think the think that captured my attention the most was firstly how he could flow over a beat so smoothly, natural-like, and then the way he could tell a story. I seriously put him in the category with Slick Rick on being brilliant story-tellers.
When it comes to hip-hop, I’m real picky about artists that I choose to listen to. It’s a very small, elite list, and BIG was, is, and always be at the front of the pack.
Agreed on allllllll that… some shit he did, even for me bein’ into his music, still fukked my head up when he did it cause I didn’t know he could do it, i.e. the ‘Notorious Thugs’ joint. He was def. part of that time in hip-hop when the descriptive stories started comin’ in strong… shit, I might have to do an entry on the stories one of these days… some great shit came out of those.
-D!