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"Damn right I like the life I live
Cuz I went from negative to positive"
So it's pretty fascinating to me the position that Biggie now holds in relation to people's attitudes towards what's good hip hop and what's not (I mean, of the people who divide these things up on the basis of anything other than case-by-case judgments). Back around the time of his death and shortly afterwards, I remember that he was still seen as being part of bad, evil mainstream rap by a lot of kids who just listened to Wu-Tang and Jeru, etc, including me. Not surprising: his best mate/producer/record boss was Puff Daddy, a lot of his singles had r&b hooks, he rapped a lot about how he liked women and specifically having sex with them, he also told stories involving guns - lots of guns - and he was obsessed with designer-name clothes and other forms of materialism.
Brief anecdotal bit here: I then made a friend at university who was a hip hop DJ, and he couldn't believe that I didn't like B.I.G. He played me a lot of tracks, he leant me a tape, and slowly it dawned on me (starting with the more rugged tracks first, as was the way for me back then): this guy was a genius. In retrospect I think realising that paved the way for me realising that the whole underground = good, mainstream = bad dichotomy applied to rap was bullshit. Apart from anything else, for the first time I realised that being a lyrical genius wasn't just a matter of cramming in a lot of very long words and making references that were as obscure as possible - you can come up with smart, funny, insightful rhymes using relatively straightforward language.
But I've noticed that many of the people who still cling to that dichotomy solve the problem of Biggie by just putting him on the right side of that divide. Which is amazing to me because in some ways, for the reasons listed above, the Notorious one really was an example of the textbook 'bad' mainstream rapper. And I'm wondering how this works in those people's heads. Is it, as I suspect, simply just a question of there always being a statute of limitations on when mainstream rap is always seen as bad by the people who hold this mindset? Say 6-8 years, give or take? In other words, back in the mid-90s it was Biggie and Pac and Puffy who were bad, but NWA and Ice-T might just be okay. Now, Biggie might be okay, but 50 Cent or Fabulous are definitely bad... Does the fact that he's dead add to that, canonising him earlier than would otherwise be the case?
Ironically, I think the artist who holds the closest position to this today is Jay-Z - ie, ask someone who divides hip hop up into the good/real/true hip hop and the bad/mainstream/fake rap, and you won't be able to predict necessarily which side of the fence they'll put Jigga on. I'm not sure that's what Jay-Z meant when he went on and on about taking over from Biggie all those times. But is interesting - for me, it's interesting because I think examples like B.I.G. and Jay should up how unworkable that divide is.
Okay, so if anyone has anything to say about the above, that would be great - but we can also just use this thread to talk about favourite B.I.G. tunes. Like, for me obviously the whole of Ready To Die is a classic, especially (off the top of my head) 'Things Done Changed', 'Warning', 'Juicy', 'The What' and the title track. In fact 'Juicy' was a real epiphany-inducer for me. But I also love a lot of tracks from Life After Death: 'Somebody's Got To Die', 'I Love The Dough', 'I Got A Story To Tell' and of course 'Mo Money, Mo Problems'...
"B-I-G, P-O, P-P-A
No windfall for the DEA
Federal agents mad cuz I'm flagrant
Tap my cell, and the phone in my basement" |
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