Remember back in the days, when niggaz had waves
Gazelle shades, and corn braids
Pitchin pennies, honies had the high top jellies
Shootin skelly, motherfuckers was all friendly
Loungin at the barbeques, drinkin brews
with the neighborhood crews, hangin on the avenues
Turn your pages to nineteen ninety three
Niggaz is gettin smoked G, believe me…
I usually outline entries like this, but I decided to just flow from the heart instead of the mind today and eschew the pretention.
If you are a hip-hop fan, you know what today is. You know why I changed my design this week. You know who my favorite rapper and artist is. If you know me, you know me and this guy share a common name in Christopher. Track #2 from Ready to Die is fading out as I write this, and things certainly have changed.
I wonder how different things would be if he was still around. You wonder how many albums he would’ve dropped by now. You wonder what a Biggie and Kanye West joint would’ve sounded like, or Biggie and The Neptunes. Another Biggie and Jay-Z collabo or perhaps even a 50 Cent collabo that wasn’t post-humus? How far did his influence reach as far as other rappers’ careers? Would Jay-Z be retiring? Would The L.O.X. have jumped ship? Would Lil’ Kim’s albums be a little more focused and cohesive?
And you think of the bad. What if he had fallen off? It happens to every rapper at some point, someone always becomes irrelevant. Would he be embroiled in several mini-beefs that don’t end in death but instead question one’s cred? These things often cross my mind as I listen to music and not just his. You ever hear a song and just go “Man, B.I.G. would’ve ripped that shit!”?
I’m still pissed about it, because I feel like hip-hop has definitely lost something. He was the only artist that made me love this music as much as I do. These days, it’s hard for me to connect to much of it without him around. As far as I’m concerned, everyone that came after him is expendable. Biggie was perfection personified.
There’s a reason fans like me look at people like B.I.G, ‘Pac, and J.M.J. as martyrs of some sort. Very few artists these days display any redeeming qualities other than their talent for making hits. Very few are moving forward and changing the game. It’s hard these days to say what separates one cat from the next because everyone sounds alike now.
When Biggie rhymed, you felt like he was sitting right across from you, telling you how his day went. He was personalble, and his conversational humor made you feel right at home. We related to this guy. He wasn’t a pretty boy, by his own account he wasn’t very attractive at all. But you can imagine with the amount of charisma he had why any woman would want to be by his side.
People outside of hip-hop just don’t get it. To them, he was just another rapper that lived by the sword and died by it. But every culture, every generation has someone that just speaks to them. He laid his flaws on the table, let everyone know how he felt about the game, made me understand that as a black youth, I was valid, no matter what anyone else would have me believe. He talked about struggling. Me and a lot of people I know are struggling right now, hustling in our own ways to get by. That’s why Biggie matters to us, that’s why we broke down when we lost him. He was our voice. Not necessarily the face of our culture, but a damn good representative of how a lot of us felt.
I encourage everyone to have a private Biggie moment at home today if you haven’t already. Play five of his hits. Play the whole damn album. Nod your head. Recite the rhymes. Remember that feeling? Only Biggie can make you feel like that and no one else.
On this day, I won’t mourn his passing. I will instead mourn everything else that seemed to die with him. Turn on the radio or BET and you’ll know exactly what I mean. I feel for the ones that will come up in this era of music not knowing or understanding what made him one of the greatest.
Things have changed.
From one Christopher to another, we miss you.
in an elder at the church voice, “mmm mmm mmm”
…But better question, Who is going to save the game?
I feel you so much on this blog today, and after reading this entry (which i could tell is very personal to you) i realized that hip hop is in a state of despair. There really arent too many rappers that move crowds or truly make a connection like BIG.
And not to sound sappy, its not his music that effects me most about his untimely death, its the fact that this MAN had a family with CHILDREN. Im not going to slip into another black on black violence lecture, BUT DAYUM…the shits leaves me confused.
Excellent post holmes,
I feel you, although most of my homeboys didn’t think that he would have ever fallen off. He was stronger than Puffy himself, and had more charisma than Faith.
Biggie moments are public to me, and had been to all my homeslices up north and down south. Maybe I was blind to the fact of a lot of bah humbug concerning Biggie.
Great tribute!
I had my Biggie moment to honor his contributions.
i love biggie.
i constantly argue with tupac fans about biggie’s possible acheivements. yeah the east coast reps him hard but everyone thinks he was just about females and partying. he never had time to grow as an artist i always say.
but maybe…from one fan to another…if you know explain where he got Frank White from. the reference constantly escapes me.
peace
I agree with MsThing….this is a very nice tribute.
Wonderful post (and tight as hell layout!!), nOva. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I’ve had my B.I.G. moments all week … albums have been in fairly heavy rotation … not neccesarily because this is the anniversary of his death, but because he was saying some shit that i’ve needed to hear lately.
your name is christopher?
Lovin’ the new design babydoll..
My husband looooooooooooves him some Biggie.. And when I say love I mean love. Love as in he has all our bebes rappin’ Biggie songs.. Love as in that is all he mainly listens to.. Love as in anything Biggie he listens to, watches, etc.. Love as in now he got me lovin’ Biggie.. Love as in.. ok you get my point… *lol* *muah*
yes i’ve been bumping his songs and he is missed. he was a talented man.
and i’m like raven your name christopher or is that your middle name?
Biggie is irreplacable. (ask puffy) so much of the game has changed, HIPHOP music is in a state of confusion. I can’t even turn on urban radio or BET without getting annoyed. This woman who used to be a little girl growing up in Brooklyn sorely misses those days that Biggie speaks of in the lyrics you shared in your blog.
Lata