that time I met Biggie ๐๐๐พ
hip hop's new daily operation | 5.21.20
TheMotto No. 18. Birthday blessings to the Brooklyn boy who became legend: Christopher โNotorious B.I.G.โ Wallace. I always related to a particular line from his โNotorious Thugsโ: Been in this shit since โ92 / Look at all the bullshit I been through. I started writing about hip-hop in 1992, and Iโd occasionally see the man originally known as Biggie Smalls at clubs or industry events during those party-and-bullshit days. Like me โ like all of us who were young, hungry, and trying to get on โ Biggie liked to rock the cool (free) promo items. Youโd catch him in the cut smoking a blunt with a Big Daddy Kane bandana on or in a Bฤs Blasta skully. A few years later, Iโd be doing business around the releases of 1994โs Ready To Die and 1997โs Life After Death. After his passing, my XXL team paid homage to Big many times. Let me get my reminisce on, and share some of my Big Poppa memories.
top billinโ:
had the pleasure of interviewing Big only once, and I turned it into two pieces. One for Urb magazine (shout out to the owner Raymond Roker, I need a copy!) and one for ego trip, it was only our second issue. Method Man got the cover, but I was proud of my story โฌ๏ธ
โคด๏ธ We were in a small conference room at Arista Recordsโ NYC offices. Think I was the last interview of the day โย some real rookie sh*t. Biggie was smoking. There were snacks. I could tell Big liked me because at mid-interview he grabbed my tape recorder, clicked it off, told me something off-the-record, and then clicked the recorder back on. Trust: that something is still off the record.
๐ค in 1997, when I was music editor at The Source, the staff was invited to an early and private listening of what would become Life After Death. Puffy was the host with the most and Biggie (with the Lil Cease-crippled-me cane) stayed seated the whole time, head-nodding along to his new work.
๐ต when they threw on โMo Money, Mo Problems,โ the entire room lost it. They flipped that Diana Ross shit! Ah man, this song is outta here! Hit record smash out the gate! And if you catch me at the bar after this quarantine lockdown, I will make, and win the argument that โMoโ is the greatest hip-hop song of all-time.
Only regret from that wonderful afternoon is unlike my colleague, Paula T. Renfroe, l never got a photo with Biggie. They offered, but back then, I often wrote negative record reviews, and I tended to keep a low profile. Tuck your chin in. It was a different time.
๐ค๐ค๐ค๐ค๐ค during my run as music editor (December 1996-Sept 1998), the only album that received a perfect rating was Life After Death. We fought to get that album from Bad Boy in time for a proper record review. Puffy refused and refused, but as we neared deadline, he relented. I remember getting the white cassette cases from Daddyโs House and frantically making a copy for my boss, Source editor-in-chief, Selwyn Hinds. I FedExed it to his hotel in Los Angeles. Selwyn was at the party Biggie was killed in front of. That next morning, the album arrived at his room. Surreal.
I got the call from publisher Dave Mays on a Sunday morning: Biggie was gone. We went to the New York office that day and started working on a package to highlight Wallaceโs accomplishments, and his impact on our culture. I seemed focused but I was dazed and confused. Was hip hop over? I finally had the job that I had dreamed of. We had just had Biggie on the cover a month previous with an official Chairman Mao interview. How could this have happened? Again?!
Big dying six months after Tupac Shakur. The biggest setbacks hip hop ever faced. A lot of us in the moment were really scared that hip hop would lose its voice. When mainstream people were saying hip hop was a fad, we were all like: Youโre wrong. But when the two main guys died, many of us were like, What if they were right? Thankfully, the culture not only recovered, we doubled down.
ego trip published one of Biggieโs last interviews, and we were granted a photo shoot (rest in peace Shawn Mortensen). To this day, when folks like Styles P share photos like the below, it makes me smile โcause itโs from our shoot โคต๏ธ
โฉ we even turned one into an XXL tribute cover.
๐ you recall the drill from my YN reign: each April issue (released in March) was a Biggie cover. And we did numbers. I only wish the content inside was better displayed on these internets.
๐ฃ and Iโm still tellinโ Biggie stories. Check out two classic Rap Radar Podcast episodes one from longtime Biggie confidant Damien โD-Rocโ Butler, and Biggieโs manager, Mark Pitts.
still looking forward to hosting Mr. Sean Combs one day.
what more can I say:ย
It ainโt no more to it. Biggie forever.
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