Howard University, over a decade ago, and I was, as you must know by now, the essence of elitist, backpacking player-hatred. I stepped out the womb disheveled, crooked glasses, nappy head, dirty to the world. And I could not change for college--in the hall of heroes and game, I was steady banging "Suspended in Time," chasing girls who looked right through me, toting Walter Rodney wherever I'd go. In Founder's Library, there were pictures of Titans. Ali outside Douglass Hall, Eric Williams in shades, Malcolm and Bayard going a few rounds. I'd visit a few times a week, get charged off tradition, and then walk out out on to the yard, not sure which way to go.
Fridays were straight confusion. That was when Mecca shelved their Timbs, and lined U Street, hoping on Republic Gardens and fifty cent drinks. But I was home in my cluttered efficiency, alternating between Larry Neal and NBA Live. Outside, the cars would wheel up 15th, past the corner-hangers, hustling their headache weed. From their systems, always the same ass-mongering anthem pumped--a fat dude swinging on his own dick. I'd shake my head knowing it was the sign of the times, knowing that it was 1995, and Biggie Smalls was fucking up my life.
So much time spent on what is and isn't real. I was a wannabee poet failing out of English. No matter, I'd tell myself, classrooms are artifice. The real man must self-reach. I'd troop down to the local open mics--partly to check out shorties so gorgeous they scared me, but mostly to sneer at bad poetry, and feel angry. And feel right. At home in the afternoon, there were Power Rangers on the screen, and I was preposterous swearing that the world has not been the same since the days of Skeletor came to Grayskull. I was nostalgia in the flesh. Never was there a kid, more in need of drink. Never was there a dude who should have pulled, not passed, in the cipher.
But I was real, and believe that everything anyone needed to know could be found in first verse of Verbal Intercourse. Yet even that was threatened by Vader in shades and and an oversized red leather bomber, banging hip-hop journalists and scheming on R&B chicks. Biggie-fucking-Smalls. Once we were No Half-Stepping, but now it was how many times can I rhyme Versace, and how many whips do I push, and how many key did I move.
I wasn't going out like that. Better to worship at the altar of Primo. Better to pledge my sword to the Wu. Better to grab this Heltah Skeltah and hold on for dear life. The brothers would shake their heads--Nigger, you crazy. Biggie is sick--then point to The What, cliffs to branches, trees to avalanches. I was young and black in the 90s. You can be bitter about poetry, but the King of New York could not be escaped.
Time passed. I went to cola and JD. Mastered White Owls, Backwoods and Phillies. Got up the courage to walk across the room and speak. Lost a little weight. And then one night, sitting up with my older brother, nothing else going on but Life After Death, and by the time we hit Long Kiss, I understood--"Be the cats with no dough, try to play me at my show\I pull out fo-fos and go up in they clothes." Here was an imperfect album, sprawling and overdone. But on every track--be they half-baked or hot as hell--Biggie bent words into anything. I am perpetually late--forever watching the bus pull off, a block away from the stop. And so by the time I really got it, Biggie was dead.
I listened to Hypnotize five times while try to write this, trying to find a way to explain why I don't think I'll be going to see the new Biggie flick. It's about not wanting to remember what I missed in those days, about how much I bypassed because I was not open. But more than anything, it's about that last chapter. What was Biggie doing out West, partying like he was back on Fulton? Where was the Kevlar and bullet-proof glass? Where were the guns when he needed them? I don't need to see that all played out again. I'm late to the game, but I know what happened. I know what we lost.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Funny how this is the same way I felt about missing Nirvana and Pearl Jam in the late late 90's because I was too busy listening to Wu Tang, the Chronic, etc., earlier in the decade.
But ahh, Biggie, an elegant MC for a more civilized age (the 90's).
thank you for this. I could read you all day.
Biggie was an incredible MC, but I see him and Sean/Puff/Diddy as some of the folks who inspired Nas to make his "Hip Hop is Dead" album. After Biggie, rap became less "The Message" and more "Money, Mo' Problems". The hole Common, Mos Def and Erykah are digging us out of was first dug by Biggie and his like. That's sort of hard to accept--especially since I was all about grunge and goth and wasn't even into rap then (were you and I late to the same bus stop?) and started really loving hip-hop again in college.
Since you mentioned Heltah Skeltah, I'll mention that you have to pick up their new album, "D.I.R.T." Better than their first album.
Biggie's cool, but to this day, I still don't get the Tupac worship.
Simply beautiful. I moved to DC in 92, and I was on time for the BIG party, but I still preferred Pac/Too-Short/Snoop/8Ball-MJG (reppin my home town). I thought, and still do, no way that an overweight dude could spit like that and be legit. He had the same swagger that the cats from Stax Records had in the 70's. It was not until I witnessed two Jheri Curl/Gold Grill sportin brothers in an old Cutlass in Orange Mound (Memphis) bumpin BIG that I knew he had taken over the rap game. I still say that journalists were wrong in saying that you had to conquer the opposite coast (East/West) to take over the rap game, I think you had to conquer the south. For these two brothers in Memphis to replace Maze/Willie Hutch/Mayfield with BIG was a big step. He was and still is the man. "Cheese eggs and Welch's Grape"!
dwhite:
I'm with you on not getting the Tupac worship. To me his only good album was Me Against the World. I think it was more his charisma and personality that people loved than his skills as an MC.
In 2006, I used to work the nightshift at an office, and as such we could play whatever music we wanted because no supervisors were there. So I play Hypnotize, and my co-worker, a white hipster chick from Coronodo, CA (AKA Republicanville), starts busting out every line. It was then that I know that whatever enclave you were in in the late 90s, Biggie permeated.
BabylonSista,
It seems to me like what you're saying about Biggie is that, in artistic terms, he was a terminus, as opposed to a trailblazer, and that those who have followed his lead have only been able to imitate, rather than further his work. Am I right on that? Because I think there's something to it. Biggie went to a place artistically where there wasn't really a next step to take, and those who've tried to take that step might be prettying the work up, might be making it more ornate, but aren't really advancing it, because there's nowhere to advance it to.
That's the best writing I'll read all week, for sure.
The rhythm in those first three paragraphs...!
Thanks for the nostalgia. I truly know what you're talking about since I feel the same way about high school and Howard. I only observed from a distance and never dived in. Now I have my regrets.
I am not going to get in a flame war about this but Tupac was a lot more diverse lyrically than ANY other MC. And that goes all the way back to Brenda's Got A Baby. All Eyez On Me will stand as the platinum standard for any double disc rap release forever. I have mad respect for Biggie too and think he is one of the GOATS but to not put Tupac in the same category or higher is just silly talk. Tupac could talk about money hoes and clothes OR about black folks struggles and trying to be a better man OR about militancy and politics. Imma end it there before I get too worked up.
No need to get worked up, sgwhiteinfla. I've learned over the years that when it comes to Tupac, it's just something I don't get. Don't take it as a dig at him, just as a blind spot in my tastes.
It'll take a while to explain why this moved me.
For now I'll just say, thank you for writing this, TNC.
Don't get the East-West war going in here, sg. 2Pac was hella overrated. His rhymes almomst always seemed to end with "enemies." He damn near might have been a better actor.
This is all about Biggie right now.
TNC, thanks for this. I almost feel the same way about the movie ... I lived through it, sat in a room, holding a cup of Crown and Coke for hours while some of my homeboys stepped and twirled a cane to "Hypnotize." Even that too-long experience couldn't make me hate that joint. I probably could have listened to it for at least another hours' worth of spins.
Big just had way too much life ahead of him to have it all end so early. At 30, I now know that 24 years ain't about shit. You haven't even gotten started, haven't experienced anything, have no real stories to tell. And yet, Big still had the gift.
It's sad to think about what he and we all missed when those bullets cut him down in L.A.
Great piece. Mirrors my mid-90s mindset to a tee. This: "I'd troop down to the local open mics--partly to check out shorties so gorgeous they scared me, but mostly to sneer at bad poetry, and feel angry. And feel right" is perfect.
And now, a hi-jack.
Getting 2Pac is either very easy or very hard. He was surely a capable MC. He had a chameleon-like ability to stop and flip a bitch on a dime, and zoom back the other way when it came to styles, allegiances, and morals; that was ultimately a benefit to his career. But his beats were never the best, and a ferocious desire to lay out his points in quite certain terms often hobbled his thinking. He didn't truck with "styles" too much. He bellowed, he whispered, he yelled, he spoke... but he didn't play with words, phrases, couplets, or even rhythms really. He was, at his best, an imperfect MC. Words were barely worth their weight beyond what they could expose of him. Whereas Biggie worked with a scalpel, Pac wielded a jackhammer. 9mm, meet rocket launcher.
To get 2Pac has a lot more to do with understanding the feelings behind his words, what he was getting at under the armor. Raw feelings. The strength, the vulnerability, the raw anger and hatred, the psychosis, the love, the suicide. Pac was never an MC's MC, and to me his rhymes themselves fall far short of justifying the college electives dedicated to parsing them. But there is a reason nobody sold more t-shirts in the hood before Obama. Pac resonates. A lot of rappers are influenced by Biggie, but it pales in comparison to those who channel 2Pac from beyond the shroud.
On the merits, Pac doesn't hold a candle to Biggie. Yet he is easily embraced as widely and probably plus some. He has influenced the best we have. If you're not there yet, it's worthwhile to keep digging.
TNC...
damn this is some good writing.. I love this best (because it puts in words something I've felt more than once):
Unfortunately I've still watching the Biggie bus drive away from me, but you've motivated me to figure out what it was that I missed...
"Dead Wrong" is BY far my favorite hip hop track of the late 90s. The beat and the rhymes are OFF THE CHART. Crass, misogynist thuggery done perfectly. If I were a a boxer I would enter the ring to it. Moreover, it displays in perfect form the rhyming skills of Eminem and BIG at the height of their powers.
I dove in. And swam those mid and late nineties District waters. From getting handjobs in Republic Garden, to skirting bullets outside The Ibex, to suffering from a sudden bout of claustrophobia listening to KRS-One blurt, "Black Cop, Black Cop, at the massive Ritz on 9th and E. These were all indelible experiences of a great time.
Commenting on the building Big v Pac meme would only detract from Coates' wonderful piece, so I won't.
I would implore further commenters to not engage either. Try posting your favorite memory or verse of either...I'll start.
Big: Notorious Thugs first verse is THE BEST BIGGIE VERSE EVER.
Tupac: All Eyez is one of the best double CDs EVER, regardless of genre.
k1
I remember finding out that Biggie rapped both parts on "Gimme the Loot." I was about 15. My mind was blown. BLOWN.
Favorite lyrics change on a daily basis... today it's "Got A Story To Tell" for Big, and for Pac it's been "Hail Mary" for a little while now. And portions of "Bomb First".
k1,
I've never been much of a B.I.G. fan. I always recognized his skill, but I always thought there was something a little ugly about his lyrics. (this coming from a lover of M.O.P. and a hater of all things "neo-soulish." I can't explain it.)
Having said that, his verse on the Flava In Ya Ear remix was just awe-inspiring. Rarely a day goes by when I don't think to myself "You're mad cause my style you're admiring/Don't be mad...UPS is hiring."
I really worked hard to not mention Tupac in this piece. Not out of disrespect, but because I knew where it would go. And we're here anyway. I can't really stop you guys. I just wonder when we'll get tired of having an argument we've been having for over a decade now. This isn't like Kane v. Rakim. There's a level of bitterness that tinges the Biggie v. Pac thing which immediately turns me off. It's the Israeli-Palestinian beef--but for hip-hop heads.
Sorry for being the first to mention Tupac, TNC. But the two are inexorably linked. So much of their careers and public personas were defined by their relationship with each other, that it's just impossible to discuss one without bringing up the other.
Shit, I knew it! My apologies.
For the record, I love both. I'm one to argue the relative merits, but not to eschew one for the other.
I'll be seeing the Biggie movie. Got to. Only real question is if I should catch it near work in the Vill or take it Magic Johnson's...
Coates
I said my piece and I am done with it and I only said it in response to what someone else brought up. But you just can't do anything about Biggie without Tupac coming up and vice versa. They will be linked for time immortal not only because of their level of flow but because of the rivalry and the circumstances of their death.
But I DO think you should go watch the Biggie movie. The reason being is that you can always leave before the ending comes but there is no telling about he little things you might pick up on before then about who he was before that night in LA. Don't get me wrong, I don't expect the movie to be a straight documentary. I am sure there will be plenty of spin involved. But his life story just like Tupac's is a dynamic one and I think whether you go to the theaters to watch it or not sooner or later the urge will be to strong anyway and you will end up checking it out. Why not cut out the middle man and just get it out of the way?
Of course if the movie sucks I will come back on this thread and call you all kinds of geniuses lol
I won't see the movie because I know I'll be disappointed. Sorry but it just looks corny to me, and as much as I like Biggie, I'm not sure if he's really movie material. Was he really that influential? Did he have that profound an effect on music or culture? I don't think so. Feel free to disagree.
The only interesting part would be the ending, and whatever is interesting about it is easily negated by the fact that,like TNC and others, I really have no desire to watch Biggie get murdered (could we change the ending so Puff gets shot?).
This all aside from the fact that I have a 2 year old so I haven't been to a movie in years.
You know, I saw Tupac and Biggie together in concert once. It was 1993, soon after "Party and Bullshit" was released. The crowd went wild for them, though I wasn't really into it (I was too busy physically restraining my girlfriend -- now wife -- from beating up these two skinny chicks who jumped on her back when Tupac strolled on stage). But I always find it ironic that I saw them in concert together, considering I was never a fan of either of them, and there are people around who would have given an arm and leg for that experience.
Wow, great stuff. B.I.G. was just so damn talented, it's still sad to know he died so young. Same with Pac, but Pac felt like he was around for a decade before he died, he worked so much (in music and film), and had so many tracks released after his death. But B.I.G. was just a shooting star that burned out way too soon.
Incertus:
I think Biggie and Puff did blaze a trail, but it was a trail that led to a nasty path; if someone were to do a hip-hop genealogy, all the rappers who talk about bitches like they can be bought from a dealership can be traced back to Biggie and others like him. He and Nas weren't that far away from each other lyrically, but Nas matured into something completely apart from a rapper hustler, where Biggie wanted to be Frank White. I think rappers like Jay-Z took the next logical step, which was to make the game into a business (even though Jay-Z can still rhyme, his strength is his business sense). Puff did it after Biggie died, but he's a businessman too, and trying to make himself into a chocolate James Bond instead of staying hood. So...yeah.
Quite a nice trip down memory lane. In 1995, for me it was Mobb Deep. I was a 20 yrd old mexican dude from Texas, in the Army stationed in Colorado so Group Home was not readily available. But thanks for that blast from the past. I to resisted Biggie, who along with Bone's 1st of Da Month was on an endless loop of hell on the radio and in the club. But it was hard to deny the talent and impact. Now he is a deserved icon, and like you I will not be seeing this movie. I have to agree with Labor, it looks corny and I refuse to have another icon's memory of mine be muddled by some dude. Val ruined Jim, Wood ruined Jimi(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0260949/), Leon ruined David Ruffin, Lou Diamond ruined Ritchie, Paul Mooney destroyed Sam Cooke, Vincent Chase ruined Pablo...I draw the line at Biggie.
Wait a damn minute, Keith--when the hell did Paul Mooney play Sam Cooke?!? Nuh-the-fuck-uh.
And while I do want to see the movie just to see what they do to Lil Kim, I have a feeling this film will be a BET Blackbuster by the end of the year.
I think it's often easier to appreciate artists like Biggie in retrospect- because in the moment of the present, enjoying his music felt a bit like endorsing his nihilism.
From the safe distance of 2009, we can enjoy Biggie's rhymes without danger of co-signing his dark and ultimately fatal brand of nihilism.
TNC,
another great post. man, you found a lane alot of us out here relate too...we just dont write it as well as you! I too was late to the BIG thing.Beleive it or not, I NEVER owned a Ready to Die CD (tape), and i am surely the biggest hip hop head i know...I was a Wu Headbanger, Nas, the Infamous, etc type guy..had to be gully for me in the 90's. But everytime i listen to BIG rimes they are always hot. Did he have a weak verse out when he was living? Somebody tell me one!
Babylon-
Yes it happened. He played Sam Cooke in The Buddy Holly Story. A movie where Gary Busey got a damn Oscar nominee for butchering Buddy Holly.
Not a fan of the Hollywood remake of musicians, but I can't seem to resist watching them...
To be fair to Paul, it was a bit role, but surreal none the less.
Laurence did in fact nail Ike...but he is the exception.
"I remember finding out that Biggie rapped both parts on "Gimme the Loot." I was about 15. My mind was blown. BLOWN." Your bug'n B. That was the kid from the Lords of the Underground, not DoItAll but the other heavier set kid. As far as Biggie goes he was a pioneer in some respects but he was building on foundation built by Kool-G Rap. Do your homework folks Kool-G started the whole Big Willy Don rap that has now plagued hip-hop for the last ten years. Biggie was a wordsmith and in my top 5 w/o a doubt. Best track was "Dead Wrong" or "Me and my bitch".
I'm another one who missed the Biggie bus. I'm white and primarily a jazz and metal guy, but I'm far from ignorant of hip-hop - saw PE/Stetsasonic/EPMD/Big Daddy Kane live in '88, before Nation Of Millions was even out, and still listen to Follow The Leader about once a month minimum. Still, all I knew of Biggie was the songs I saw on MTV, which I thought were kinda weak, and Puffy's endless public mourning for him and the consequent death-cult, because of my own ignorance, seemed vulgar and overblown, so I turned my nose up and ignored it. Then, last year sometime, I decided to finally check out Ready To Die front to back - at least in part, I confess, because of an endorsement from jazz pianist Matthew Shipp, who's a friend. And yeah, I was blown away. It's a great, great album. Sure, there's skippable tracks, but the high points are so good I feel vaguely ashamed for having missed out so long.
Tupac, on the other hand, is hip-hop's own Jim Morrison - wildly overrated, beloved for being dead.
And the talk of what came in Biggie's wake, by the way, is what caused me to (again, until last year sometime) pass by Jay-Z, too. I...um, obtained...his entire catalog in one R@pid$h@re outburst a few months back, and...well, let's just say it wasn't a RTD-style revelation. He's got one or two good songs per album (and more often than not, they're not the singles), but the materialism is so pervasive and so crass that I find it totally impossible to relate in any major way (whereas the existential despair in Biggie's lyrics translates quite easily to a metalhead - there's not so much distance between "Suicidal Thoughts" and, oh, let's say...Suicidal Tendencies).
Sorry, B, but I'm afraid you're the one who is straight 'buggin.' I know that Wikipedia isn't the final word, but I've looked in the liner notes as well. I also highly doubt they would have it wrong at this point.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimme_The_Loot
Most of the time I thoroughly enjoy this weblog, but as a white person in my sixties, this post was pretty near incomprehensible and so are most of the comments! You all carry on and I'll wait for the next post to come along.
dnfree:
Shall I e-mail you when we start the discussion about Bread and Gordon Lightfoot?
dnfree-
Oh come on cranky, my post referenced Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, and Buddy Holly...
Not being cranky, Keith, just bemused by how much I don't know and have no frame of reference for!
Babylonsista, thanks for the offer! I'll pass on Bread (should anyway, too many carbs), but I was a Gordon Lightfoot fan. Bob Dylan was and remains my favorite from that era, though.
Aaaaww shiet...in the spirit of brotherhood and the new year...i will NOT speak ill of a fellow TNC-commenter...but Heltah Skeltah's first is hard to eclipse...but i respect your opionion dwhite10701...anywho...the Tupac vs Biggie discussion is one for the ages...and i sincerely hope i won't see any trolling about it! I'm keeping my own mouth shut about them both except this...they're in a league of their own...and that's that! Btw...some GREAT writing TNC...u captured it perfectly...
Somebody help me out. I'm waiting for Justin or anybody else to prove me wrong about "Gimme the Loot." If I'm wrong, I will be incredibly sad. If I'm not wrong, I'm waiting for Justin's head to explode.
Growing up in NY after the age of KRS, X-Clan, Poor Righteous Teachers, Kane, etc. and being smacked with Biggie was a shock to the system... his movement came out of nowhere... why are these 10 year old girls skipping down the street - reciting One More Chance lyric for lyric? Is he that hot? Yeah, he's alright, but he's not real. He wasn't a Nasty Nas or Wu-Tang but he captured everyone's imagination... yeah, I bumped him... copped both albums and lost my mind at the Tunnel when Who Shot Ya came on... but I never bought into it. He was the Player President but he never represented me so I never looked at it as anything lasting and I wonder whether we currently would had he lasted.
Man, Coates. You grew up just as bitter as I did. For me this musical realization-after-the-fact came with Nirvana, after he was dead, I was 14 and it was the first music I really cared about and heard as if they were speaking to me directly. I also came to hip-hop late, although more gradually and smoothly. You could catch me bobbin my head to the ubiquitous dre, snoop, biggie, tupac, ice cube joints despite myself in high school, disdaining hip hop because the local hip hop kids happened to be fucking assholes. ah well. I enjoy it all thoroughly now. Music is God. (Like beer to Ben Franklin.)
I'm of two minds about the post-mortem Pac worship. I was a huge fan when he was alive (and continue to celebrate his whole catalogue, as Bob Slydell might say) but I admit I get upset whenever I see a 16 year old kid wearing a Pac shirt who only knows the media-created myths about him. People forget (or never knew) that, at the time he was shot, Pac wasn't even the biggest artist on Death Row (that was Snoop) and he certainly wasn't viewed as a living legend. So, if you evaluate Pac on the basis of the manufactured gangster image and subsequent beatification, he's massively overhyped. And none of the seemingly endless number of post-mortem releases (excepting Makaveli) are worth listening to. But the guy who came up with Digital Underground and dropped tracks like Brenda and Dear Mama and, yes, even I Get Around (which I still think is one of the best songs in that genre) was something special.
His Death Row work was what it was. It was in keeping with the times and it sold. I bought it and I loved it. I still listen to it from time to time, although not as much as his earlier work. He did gangsta well, even if he wasn't really a gangster.
The bottom line is that I don't think Pac would be revered today if he had pulled through. He probably would have followed the Ice Cube career arc - dropping sales, diminished street cred, family movie star - or just faded away. The paralells between Cube and Pac always struck me. That 16 year old kid I mentioned above, wearing the Pac shirt, likely only knows Cube as the guy from a bunch of PG movies, and has probably never listened to Death Certificate or understood what Cube's performance in Boyz meant (if he's even seen it). And, yet, if Cube and Pac switched places that night in Vegas after the Tyson fight, maybe that kid would be wearing a Cube shirt today and worshipping AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, while knowing Pac as that dude who took a bunch of bratty kids for a series of wacky misadventures during a road trip.
By contrast, I think Biggie's legacy was hurt by his passing. Sure, Bad Boy fell way the hell off after he was gone and maybe it would have dragged him down with it, but I think he had another few classics in him and I never could see him ending up in Are We There Yet. I hope this movie isn't the first step in sending Biggie down that road, where we'll see him dancing with a vacuum cleaner in a commerical in 20 years. This comes from a lifelong West Coaster who always favored Pac to Biggie - still do - but I have to admit that the legend of Pac is bullshit (he should be a legend but for none of the reasons he is) but the legend of Biggie, at least to this point, is basically well deserved.
Here's how I feel. I get this from reading about him, but also from just listening to his music. At his core, Biggie was just a language genius. Just an artist, nothing less, and just as important, nothing more. Not a product of exceptional deprivation; not good at selling drugs; not particularly ignorant, violent, or any of the other superlatives applied to him. Well, save one, he was fat. But not notorious.
For better or worse, probably worse, he used this prodigious skill to illustrate a comic book-ish escapism. Every now and then something real from his heart would leak out, but not often enough.
I have to think that he could have applied his language skills to almost any medium. Imagine Biggie as a blogger. He would have been a sublime writer.
I'm curious to know other readers' favorite Biggie verses. Mine is the one Diddy pasted on a song called "Dangerous MCs" on Born Again. It was originally made for a Dilla beat, and it sounds especially sick in its original format. "Ask who's the raw, bet they say Poppa very/Look forward to me like commissary..."
I love reading the posts and the comments, but had to comment on my favorite MC - B.I.G. I will absolutely not be going to see the movie, I love Smalls much too much to do that; the previews look wack and you do not repay greatness with wack. Until someone tells me otherwise, I can't do it.
Yes, down south (or at least my small town of Augusta), my whole hood sang B.I.G's songs like anthems, they were and still are. Lyrically, I have not heard anything new since B.I.G. died, he said it all. Now, I listen to rap for a good beat, not content. Common, Mos Def, and the like are enlightened cats but no one has spoken to me like Smalls.
k1, I have to concur, I get goosebumps whenever I hear the intro to "Notorious Thugs", so reverant its like being in church.
I did not need a music video for "Warning." It was such an eloquent description of outrage and pissed-offedness, I could see B.I.G's fury. He channeled mine. Whenever I'm in a dangerous mood I crank up "Warning."
JR Shells....blasphemy. I'ma pray for you brutha
:-)
I've often thought about whether Biggie would have remained relevant, I believe so. All true hustler's know how to adapt, the smart ones create the environment for change, for a movement. B.I.G. would've just switched the game.
*sigh*
I'm going back to work, with "One More Chance" the remix in my headphones.
Biggie to me was the reason I started listening to rap, after coming to this country from haiti. I was used to lionel richie and latin slow jams (dont ask) but not until biggie and the WU did my eyes open up and I realized how sick hip hop could be. Allthought many on here prolly have diferent ideas of the best biggie songs, overall to me it was when he was storytelling that big was at his finest from "niggas bleed" to "dream" thats when he was at his best.
I stand corrected.... For now. This is the problem with not actually owning a physical copy of this album I can't see the liner notes, but I can almost remember reading it when I originally bought the cd back in 94. With that said I got my PHD in Hip-Hop been lving and breathing it since I bought my first tape ever (Too $hort "life is too short"). However, it appears Stacey has taken me to school on this one. I’m still right about Kool-G Rap laying the foundation for the Frank White era though. ;) kudos for keeping me humble Stace.
No problem, Justin. Without question, you would likely school me in almost all matters of hip-hop. But as you can now imagine, this came as quite a shock to my young, Biggie loving mind. Who knows, though, maybe its just an old urban legend that's never been debunked. I'm kind of surprised that no other commenters chimed in.
I am still skeptical and have submitted the querry to SOHH but w/ no hard evidence to contridict I gotta say you're right. I'll let you know if I am successful in my attempts to save face.
Bruce,
I loved the first Heltah Skeltah album. I still listen to it often. But listen to the new album. It's fantastic.
D-Sel,
The comparison you make between Cube and Pac is interesting, because the superlatives people use to describe Pac is the way I feel about Cube. Like when sgwhiteinfla said "Tupac could talk about money hoes and clothes OR about black folks struggles and trying to be a better man OR about militancy and politics," that describes Cube to me.
Yet another piece of writing that reminds me how far away from cool I am. I can write the parallel version of this in C#: elegant, concise, and sharp.
But that same linear skill at making ones and zeroes do the hula hoop on command never seems to come through the keys in English.
Please sir, I want some more.
dwhite10701
Dude...i got you...i've got them both...but there's something about lefleuh leflah leshkoskhaaaaaah!! that will never be surpassed...it's simply not reproducable...
You know - I was like you. I didn't really appreciate Biggie when he was alive. It really had a lot to do with how he was aesthetically unpleasing to me. I didn't identify, and didn't want to, with the need to achieve and glamourize "the high life." I think on some level I knew that his skill was SICK, but I just didn't care about or connect with what he was saying...damn how well it was said.
I think there is something to be said for such a point of view.
this is why I check in everyday....thanks for writing this....
All my Biggie tapes got worn down...then I got them on cd...consumed them whole....any mixtape that he was on, had to have it....and when I moved to Ft. Greene, I'd go up to Bed-Stuy just to say I walked the same ground....I don't have many idols, but he was definitely one and his death wounded my affection for rap/hip-hop greatly.
thinking out loud.... I wish I could find a 'Puffy-free' version of Ready to Die....you ever listen to that in the headphones? I want to smack Puff-diddy-whateverthefuck.....and there's an old mixtape of some freestyle at a concert with Biggie, Tupac, ODB, Biz Markie....and to this day, from time to time I'll hear Biggie's timeless 'WHERE BROOKLYN AT?! WHERE BROOKLYN AT?! WHERE BROOKLYN AT?!'
dwhite10701
I agree. Cube was a major part of my childhood and really the person most responsible for making me a fan of music (the first time I ever bought an album the day it came was Death Certificate, which I think was also my first CD - as opposed to tape). At that time, like you said, he could do it all, from Us to My Summer Vacation to No Vaseline. I don't think anyone has matched Cube's versatility in that genre (which he helped invent) ever since.
I remember when I knew Cube was going to end up going down the "Are We There Yet" path. I had my first inkling of it when he had the Chili Peppers in the video for Wicked but I really knew it when I saw the video for Today Was A Good Day. The irony I have never gotten over is that, in that video, when they're watching "Yo MTV Raps," the video on the TV is True to the Game. Well, go back and listen to the second verse in True to the Game (about Hammer) and listen to what Cube had to say about Hammer and MTV. I almost felt like Cube knew what he was doing and included that shot as a sort of apology to his hardcore fans who never wanted to see him crossover. Maybe that's wishful thinking, but that's always how I've taken it. Apology accepted, but he has been missed ever since.
I think that Biggie/Tupac freestyle perfectly shows the difference between the two. One is style over substance. The other is not.
It was my understanding that the backpacker crowd didn't even like Cuban Linx when it came out. You know, I assume, that that verse came straight off of his demo tape. "Deja Vu," I think the track's called.
Echoing Stacy's sentiments, I remember the same thing when I first heard "Gimme The Loot." I was like, "Damn, this dude rapped in two personas?!?" I'm pretty sure he invented that, and I think another example (possibly better done) was his story in "Sky's The Limit," where he INTRODUCES himself first, then goes ahead and raps in two personas again. Ridiculous stuff.
And for what it's worth, Tupac never came up with a line as absurdly awesome as: "I got techniques drippin' out my buttcheeks/Sleep on my stomach so I don't f--k up my sheets." It's the second line that's killer. Takes the rather commonplace braggadocio of the first line to an immortal level. I think I fell over the first time I heard those two lines.
As far as rapping as two different characters, I think Tupac actually did this before Big in a song called "I'm So Sorry", from the Thug Life album, where he had verses as himself and as his own father. Great song from a pretty good album.
Of course other rappers may well have done this before either of them.
Was Tupac rapping with two different voices in that song? Because, as you can tell by Justin's comments, Biggie really does sound like two different people.
and to this day 'Who Shot Ya' is still in constant rotation....mp3, of course...
I used to enjoy Tupac quite a bit, but when he went to Death Row, you could sense a change....he would always do party songs and some social justice type songs in there, but when he got on DR, it was like he was in a rage...all the time. I remember hearing 'Hit 'Em Up' the first time and just feeling hurt by it as if Big was one of my closest friends or something....he couldn't do Big like that could he?!?!?!
Stacy:
Yes, Tupac was rhyming in two different voices, although it wasn't by any means intended to make the audience think it was someone else. He used sort of a slowed/muffled voice, possibly automated in some way. Here's the youtube link to a video of the song that I haven't seen in ages (hope I'm not violating comment rules: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLbT1WtsR9w).
It's worth a listen if you have a few minutes and you haven't heard it before. To me it's Tupac at his best: reflective, honest, pained, regretful. These are the sort of things this white boy understands (rather than leather vests, eye patches and fists full of cash). In fact, I think I may have been a bit too harsh on Pac in my earlier comments. Maybe it had just been too long since I've listened to Him.
I could either lose myself in this thread for hours or make a quick point or two and step off, so here it is:
1. Biggie, the West Indian Archie of hip-hop, writing rhymes in his head which made his flow super-lethal since it followed natural pockets and rhythms, not formulas for bars or restraints of margin and college ruled lines. Always loved that aspect of his game.
2. You absolutely cannot argue the merits of Tupac's greatness without bringing up his most complete and polished and genius album--the Don Killuminati. Me Against the World? Cooooool? All Eyes on Me? Coooool. But nothing...nothing is effing with Don Killuminati: The Seven Day Theory.
Blasphemy:
"The preacher want me buried why? Cause I know he a liar
Have you ever seen a crackhead, that's eternal fire
Why you got these kids minds, thinkin that they evil
while the preacher bein richer you say honor God's people
Should we cry, when the Pope die, my request
We should cry if they cried when we buried Malcolm X
Mama tell me am I wrong, is God just another cop
waitin to beat my ass if I don't go pop?"
C'mon man, dont believe the hype. Pac was a poet at the end of the day, even if he did get lost into his Preacher Thug persona too often.
Ok Imma break my word just this one time. No doubt Biggie had some dope as lines. Stuff that was just silly. But if I broke out right now rapping a Tupac songs most cats would be able to recite the whole thing. His style wasn't one where you just pick out a line here or a line there because usually it all went together. Case in point.
Now that first line "I ain't a killa but don't push me..." has been used over and over in various "black movies" and even just as conversation in some circles. But when I read that line I can rattle off the rest of the verse and really the rest of the whole song. Now I am not saying you can't do that with Biggie too, I am just saying that most Tupac fans won't throw up a line as an example of his genius, they will throw up whole verses or the whole song. Again I think Biggie was all that too but the Pac hate is killing me right now.
I think that 'Hail Mary' was the perfect case in point....it was 'Pac at his best and I wish I felt the same about some of his later work as I feel about that song. It is pure genius and it's such a shame that both of them are gone...
If I remember TNC's book correctly, didn't his father know the Shakur's a bit? I'd love to hear his thoughts on Tupac.
Destro
You have to remember that a lot of "his" albums were released after his death and were just attempts by Suge to keep making money off of him. Thats why so many of his lyrics sound the same its because they WERE the same from studio sessions he had before he died. Machiavelli was the last "real" album he made where he was alive and had a part in the process. I think a lot of people who came to Pac late thought the later stuff was indicative of his overall work. The later stuff was cut and paste bullshit. But Machiavelli and anything before was just fucking genius, period.
This thread is dangerous. I need to stop checking it.
Destro,
What later work are you referring to? Pac was already dead when Hail Mary dropped (without checking, I think Makaveli came out about a month or two later), so anything that came out after that was actually his earlier work remixed by someone after he was gone.
All of which reminds me of a beef I have with Jay-Z. How the hell do you destroy, and I mean absolutely molest beyond recognition, a masterpiece like the original "Me and My Girlfriend" by turning it into some sugary sweet pop crap with Beyonce? The whole genius of the song was that the only girl he could trust was his gun, how do you replace that with a female Justin Timberlake? Absolutely unforgiveable. Especially so since Pac threatened to kill Jigga on Makaveli and he still not only stole a track off it but ruined it forever.
Whats ill about Hail Mary is that its the main theme for a running theme throughout the Makavelli / Don Killuminati album--the use of that Italian harpischord to evoke the Machiavelli musical theme the album was based on--itself an allusion to Tupac's fascination with political intrigue and strategy, as expressed on that record.
Bomb First had the harpischords, then it takes you right into Hail Mary which sounds like a Catholic cemetery, then you had the religious critiques of Blasphemy, then more harpischords in Life of an Outlaw...I mean, the album was the most coherent musically of any of Pac's albums.
Tie that into the Machiavellian theme and you really do have a hip-hop LP approaching genius.
Big always had better flows and more coherent LPs than Pac, who could be all over the place sonically. But Big never could touch Pac for transcending hip-hop into an Iconic status like your Jimis, your Mileses, your Bobs, your James Deans, etc. and that last album Pac did proved that to me.
Awww come on folks - can't we appreciate both 'Pac and Big for different things? LOL.
Yep, I did Stacy. His mother and my Dad are old Panther comrades. I was in love with his sister--we were born like a day apart, actually. He was a really, really cool dude. I knew him in high school. Laid-back--getting into a little trouble, but we all were. He wasn't like a killer or anything. They moved out west circa 87-88. And then he reappeared in Same Song. I was like, Oh shit, it's Tupac. And now he's gone. It's just sad.
Juba
I don't know, Me Against The World was pretty damn coherent to me.
So many tears
I was a big 2Pac fan up until the Death Row days. So the later work that I couldn't get into was all the stuff that came after that...with the exception of Hail Mary. I bought the cd just for that song and it's probably the only song of his that I still listen to from time to time.
I do think that perhaps with time, Big could have evolved more, but comparing the careers, Pac was at it for a longer time and perhaps the difference was that he was almost clairvoyant in foreshadowing his own demise...and perhaps that's why he was able to record so much stuff for other producers to abuse.
That being said, I do appreciate them both. I wish they could be out there still doing it because I'm not feeling alot of what's out there today.
Dammit. LOVING this post. As a recovering conscious hip hop head, I avoided most of his joints like anthrax cookies while self-righteously clinging to my De La Soul/Tribe/Jungle Bros tapes. My Biggie awakening didn't happen until I heard Notorious Thugs a few weeks after Life After Death dropped, and I was just blown away at his ability to switch his style up so fluently. It's been my FAVORITE Biggie/Bone Thugz track since.
Heads will never drop the Pac/Biggie debate, though. That shit will go on FOREVER.
I missed out on almost all hip-hop when I was younger, because it just wasn't around in force where I grew up. So all of these artists being mentioned, I've heard almost none of them. I've been trying to do my homework but the catalogs are so huge by now, I don't even know where to start. Anyone want to give me a list of 1 album from various artists to listen to? BIG, Wu-Tang, Nas - I'm interested! I'd just love some pointers.
B.I.G. vs Pac is fun to argue but if you're like me you say "both" and get on with it. And either way, Nas is the one who really showed me where hip hop could go and how it could transcend even the best poetry by marrying the best poetry to the beat.
But on Pac, the haters here are just too much. Yes, Big flipped a word better than Pac, but Pac was the realest, he came hard and nobody ever had his ambition and drive, and it was inspirational (when it wasn't scary). The same guy wrote KEEP YA HEAD UP and HAIL MARY???
For me, if you don't get why 2Pac was great, check out his opening verse on Still I Rise. It's sort of the flip side to Big's Everyday Struggle, it ain't "poetic" the way say Nas would flip it but man, it ain't always about flipping word, sometimes it's just about telling the story straight and true:
2Pac - Still I Rise
"Somebody wake me I'm dreaming, I started as a seed the semen
Swimming upstream, planted in the womb while screaming
on the top, was my pops, my momma screaming stop
From a single drop, this is what they got
Not to disrespect my peoples but my poppa was a loser
Only plan he had for momma was to fuck her and abuse her
Even as a little seed, I could see his plan for me
Stranded on welfare, another broken family
Now what was I to be, a product of this heated passion
Momma got pregnant, and poppa got a piece of ass
Look how it began, nobody gave a fuck about me
Pistol in my hand, this cruel world can do without me
How can I survive?..."
If you don't know but need to know, just go get Nas' Illmatic, Wu Tang Enter the 36 Chambers, Biggie's Ready to Die, and probably 2Pac's Greatest Hits...
Those are essential classics, the kind of albums people have equaled but never bettered. Like Kind of Blue, or What's Going On...
And you should probably at Dr. Dre's The Chronic to that list...for starters...
How many cats that went platinum also had lyrics like the ones on this joint?
Damn I miss that cat. Love Biggie but Pac moved me a different way.
sgwhiteinfla,
I think "cohesive" is maybe the word I was looking for. Not lyrically, but thematically and musically. Pac had a crazy work ethic, so he had little patience for buffing song concepts to a high shine. He'd drop in on a producer, hit the booth, drop a song and bounce. To me, that put his sound all over the place and it wasnt until the last couple LPs that he started crafting good albums, IMHO, instead of a collection of banging songs.
Foulness, I LOVE THAT STILL I RISE verse. I have it memorized. "Not to disrespect my peoples / but my poppa was a loser / only plan he had for momma / was to f--k her and abuse her"...he really was hip-hop's voice for the Wretched of the Earth. Maybe thats why they still bump him from Cameroon to Croatia. THAT'S his greatness and folks either get it or you dont. Its ok if they dont, I guess...
KT -
I'd say...
Biggie - Life After Death or Ready to Die
Nas - Illmatic, It Was Written, Stillmatic or God's Son
Pac - Me Against The World or The Don Killuminati
Jay-Z - Blueprint, Hard Knock Life, The Black Album or Reasonable Doubt
Wu-Tang - Enter The 36 Chambers, Only Built For Cuban Linx (Raekwon), Ironman or Supreme Clientele (Ghostface), Liquid Swordz (GZA)
Snoop - Doggystyle, The Chronic (Dr. Dre)
Outkast - ATLiens, Aquemini, Stankonia
Kool G Rap - Road to Riches, Live and Let Die
BDP / KRS-One - By All Means Necessary, Ghetto Music: The Blueprint, Sex and Violence, Return of the Boom Bap
Eric B & Rakim - Paid In Full, Follow the Leader
Ludacris - Word of Mouf, Chicken N Beer
De La Soul - 3 Ft High and Rising, De La Soul Is Dead
A Tribe Called Quest - Low End Theory, Midnight Mauraders
Scarface - Mr. Scarface Is Back, The Diary, The Fix
Ice Cube - Amerikkka's Most Wanted, Death Certificate
Ice-T - Rhyme Pays, Power
Just off the top of my head...
Oh! And
P-p-p-p-p-p-p-PUBLIC ENEMY
(yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah BOYEEEEEE!)
Nation of Millions, Fear of a Black Planet.
Get through those and maybe Coates can graduate you to MF Doom, Jean Grae, Jaylib (Dilla and Madlib) etc ;)
Juba
Don't forget NWA
They were trendsetters back then. Eazy E though an asshole for what he did business wise to the rest of them was taken too early as well. Not because of tight flow but the guy had some damn charisma and a distinct voice.
TNC, many thanks, wonderful post
"New York, New York... Ready for the likes of this?"
@KT, a lesser known unique album:
The Goats -Tricks of the Shade-
I got seven Mack 11's, about eight 38's
Nine 9's, ten mack tens, the shits never ends
You can't touch my riches
Even if you had MC Hammer and them 357 bitches
Biggie Smalls; the millionare, the mansion, the yacht
The two weed spots, the two hot glocks
That's how I got the weed spot
I shot dread in the head, took the bread and the lamb spread
Little Gotti got the shotty to your body
So don't resist, or you might miss Christmas
I tote guns, I make number runs
I give mc's the runs drippin
when I throw my clip in the AK, I slay from far away
Everybody hit the D-E-C-K
so fuckin nasty...
My slow flow's remarkable...
cd, you killin' me...i was just about to post that!
the rest goes...
My slow flows remarkable
Peace to Matteo
Now we smoke weed like Tony Montana sniff the yayo
That's crazy blunts, mad L's
My voice excels from the avenue to jailcells
Oh my God I'm droppin shit like a pigeon
I hope you're listenin, smackin babies at they christening
Classic post TNC, awesome.
From the perspective of a white guy who grew up in rural New Mexico (now landed right back in the old family creche in Chicago) I dug both Biggie and Tupac, never really cared what the friction was all about (still don't).
Much like you with Bob Marley and the fratboys, I found all rap kind of repellent, mostly because it's just painful to watch white guys pose like that. Then I heard Chuck D rip through "Night of the Living Baseheads" in '93, then it was like a switch flipped. I think a lot of white rap fans have some moment like this, when they realized they actually purely enjoy it for the sound and feel.
But as much as I dig the music, I have little personal feeling about their deaths beyond a more or less standard sadness about a lost artist. I guess I didn't even know there was a damned bus, and ended up walking around in weird directions. Sorry, for me it's just all about the sound. Is that cold?
Stacy: Hilarious. Some friends and I had this exact argument about Loot, over new year's. 6 white kids in Idaho debating biggie, a decade later.
To me, "Niggas Bleed" is what Chester Himes would write were he a rapper.
I came to both pac and biggie late (in 93 I was strictly alternative, tho I'd bump a little snoop or dre, but I didn't get Pac and I was just ignorant of NYC rap, despite being on the east coast - straight up, all I knew about Nas was If I Ruled the World until I finally copped Illmatic like 3 years back...not my proudest moment).
Anyway, as someone who's first musical love was punk, Pac spoke to me way more than Biggie did. Biggie could craft a rhyme like no other, past or present. But Pac had so much to say and he could say it better than most. Pac did get sucked into the east/west bull, but when he stayed out of that and talked about real shit, it was serious.
The majority of the last 15 years of rap flowed out of what Pac and Big did, but few if any of their followers had Pac's depth or Biggie's craftsmanship, and it's why, to quote Common, "they the reason my people say they tired of rap."
To this day, my favorite Pac song is I Wonder if Heaven Got A Ghetto. I think cause that was one of the first times I really heard what the radio and MTV kept secret about Pac. I'm still not familar enough with either's catalogs, tho...might be time to do some homework.
BTW, I think if Biggie had access to the education Pac got, he'd have been hands down the greatest of all time, untouchable. Biggie in my mind had possibly the weakest vocabulary of the truly great rappers, and still managed to murder lines left and right. I can't imagine what he'd have done with some of the shit Pac spit.
Oh, a quick note. The majority of the posthumous Pac releases were put out by his mother, not by Death Row. She uses the proceeds to fund the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation for the arts.
First time commenter here. When they were alive, I disliked both of them but respected their skills as artists. Neither of them were saying anything I could relate to nor were they representing anything I wanted to aspire to be. And it grated on me to see the worship they got from damn near everyone around me, because we were mostly a bunch of black college kids from the 'burbs (some were from the 'hood but only a few) who had no working knowledge of any of the stuff Big was talking about. We basically fell into two categories, those who accepted their suburb upbringing and kept it moving and those who were trying to be pretend thugs on a freaking college campus for crying out loud. And the latter were the ones who loving Biggie/Pac/Snoop/etc. I respected all three but hated what they stood for. I still do, to some extent. It's still hard for me to be a Jay-Z fan for the same reason. I can't get past the glorification of things that are just bad.
forget biggie - props to you for the walter rodney reference.
Wow! Join the club, I too was late to Christopher George Latore talents. However, not as late as you. I was in my first year of Grad school out west in the yay. Fiercely partisan toward the East Coast Back Pack Style of Hip Hop. I was comical, I drew comfort from the fact I knew the difference between Hip Hop and Rap. I argued with several of my brethren about how Resurection by Common was the best release in 1994. How this clown Biggie was counting his riches even before the release of his first album and then late one night carousing with friends after several gunniess stouts and becks on the way back from some hole in the wall club in San Jose rolling up the 101, I heard Big Poppa and could no longer deny the lyrical skills of B.I.G. I remember how I resisted the Chronic and Dre, but the force of Biiggie was too much. I purchased Ready to Die the next day and for the next 9 months I played the entire album at least twice a day. "Machine Gun Funk will always remain the most underated track for me. I have to admit Nostaglia hits everytime I realize the loss of Biggie. Without question he makes my top 5
1. Rakim
2. Nas/Biggie
4. Big daddy kane
5. Posdu Nos - Plug Two