HIP HOP LEGENDS OF 90s #2 - Notorious BIG

dumar022 (70)in #hiphop • 7 years ago (edited)

When I was 14, I was gathering with my friends on school playground every day. We were rapping our own lyrics or freestyle on somebody's beatbox, smoking weed and hiding from grownups and police. We lived the way we learned listening hip hop. And in those days I listened Notorious BIG. Or Biggie Smalls, Big Poppa, or simply Biggie... So if he rapped about drug dealing and street violence, our young minds were very affected with that and we were behaving that way. But Biggie's songs carried much more than that! The way he handled the rhymes and the message in his lines...

HIP HOP LEGENDS OF 90s

NOTORIOUS BIG

When I first found out about Biggie, I was 14 years old and he was already dead for two years. So, fuck it, some news come very late in Croatia.

But, thanks to my friends from foreign countries, I could manage to get some real music. And Biggie was the best MC ever for me. In that age I started to love the sound and made my first beats. All influenced by Biggie's albums that I had. Every element on those album was perfect. Beats, production, story, rhymes...

And Biggie was real!

There was no fairy tales in his songs. When you mention Biggie, the most people first think about the war between West Coast and East Coast but Biggie was so much more of it, so much above it. People were saying that Biggie is great person but he was also rough, straight and real. He had interesting but short life that reflected on his tracks.

He was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York and started rapping as a teenager. He also started dealing marijuana, crack and cocaine. He was really a talent but his other activities got him into troubles. He spent 9 months in prison, at the age of 18 in 1990. When he got out, he started dealing again. His ex girlfriend gave birth to his daughter in 1993. He was rapping o the streets and recorded a demo when Sean Combs/Puff/Puffy/Puff Daddy/P Diddy/Diddy/???? noticed him and realized that he could make a star of him. Combs managed to Biggie that he records his freestyles on the remixes of R&B and pop songs that were popular in early 90s.

Combs promised to Biggie that he will produce his album if he leaves drug business. So Biggie had to choose. He chose Combs.

Biggie met and married the love of his life, R&B singer Faith Evans in 1994.

In the same year his first album "Ready to Die" was released. So many great songs on so small thing... unbelievable! Some songs from this album will live forever: "Big Poppa", "Juicy", "Ready to Die", "One More Chance", "Gimme the Loot", "Everyday struggle"...

The album was certified four times platinum and it was 13th on Billboard 200 charts and 1st on any rap charts that year, although in that time West Coast hip hop dominated all charts.

So Biggie made a lot of money and acquaintances. One of his new friends was Tupac Shakur (2Pac), but not for long. There were a lot of tensions between East Coast and West Coast rappers, but Biggie and Tupac were seen as major figures. Not because they were the real leaders, but because they were best rappers on both sides. They both were puppets in the war of two music industries.

In that time, Biggie recorded the album "Conspiracy" with his group Junior M.A.F.I.A.. The album was very successful, especialy the single "Get Money".

In 1995, while Tupac was in prison, he accused Combs, Andre Harell and Biggie for organizing robbery in which Tupac got five bullets. He accused them probably because Suge Knight convinced him, and because the three were in the same building at that time, recording song in the studio. That's how the war between Big Boy Records and Death Row started.

Immediately after he got out of prison, Tupac signed for Death Row. After he heard Biggies single "Who Shot Ya", he probably recognized himself in the lyrics and started to write rhymes against Biggie and East Coast rappers, who gathered around Combs and Big Boy Records.

Tupac made a song in which he claimed that he had sex with Biggie's wife and Biggie made few good songs to give him proper answer. The war included other rappers from both sides.

Eventually, Tupac was shot in September 7th 1996 and died six days after. Biggie was the one of main suspects but nothing couldn't be proved. Shortly after, Biggie and Faith Evans got a son.

During recording sessions of his second album "Life After Death", he was involved in a car accidents and it took months for him to recover.
However, he was preparing one of the beat albums in history of hip hop. He was brave enough to make the promotion in L.A. That was his wort decision.