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The Notorious B.I.G.: Too Big to Go out Like That
His 1994 The Notorious B.I.G. album, called "Ready to Die," is a classic in the hip hop community and got multicultural impact. How many upper class white people you know who call their dogs "Biggie Smalls"? I know at least a couple.
But The Notorious B.I.G. is also a dark figure in the hip hop world. He was gunned down far from his prime in March 1997, and the controversy and questions surrounding his death persist even until today, no matter what friends, colleagues, and the police say. He was after all headstrong into the whole East Coast and West Coast beef, and it was just the year before that the West Coast phenom Tupac was shot. And one could also wonder about all of the success that The Notorious B.I.G. has had since he's been killed. Is it right for P. Diddy and other record producers and artists to keep reaping the benefits of the Biggie Small name and voice even after the grim reaper took Big Poppa?
A Dark History
The Notorious B.I.G. was not afraid to admit the dark background he dealt with. After all, most of the songs off of the debut The Notorious B.I.G. record were partially autobiographical, about growing up in Brooklyn in the middle of drug dealing and shooting, and how his mother did have enough money or food to feed him and his siblings.
By 17, the The Notorious B.I.G. story goes, he was already leaving high school without graduating and getting involved with crime, which would land him in the police station and on probation by 1989. He violated his parole in 1990, then got caught dealing cocaine in 1991 and sent to prison for it.
You can listen to The Notorious B.I.G. tell you all about this dark past on The Notorious B.I.G. songs like "Gimme the Loot" and "Things Done Changed." And you can hear the self-doubt and self-loathing in the Biggie Smalls image, along with the violence and the anger, in such The Notorious B.I.G. songs as "Ready to Die" and "Suicidal Thoughts." But there was also the playful and artistic side to him, and if you listen to The Notorious B.I.G. lyrics on such songs as "Big Poppa" and "Unbelievable," you get a sense of hope that The Notorious B.I.G. was going to make a big difference not only in the rap world, but in the world overall.
Dead
But it was not to be. On March 9, 1997, Biggie was in Los Angeles, and a drive-by shooter mowed him down. Just days later, his second solo record came out, "Life After Death," which would eventually go Diamond after his death. P. Diddy also put The Notorious B.I.G. lyrics in his own solo album in 1997, called "No Way Out." And then in 1999, Bad Boy released a posthumous The Notorious B.I.G. record called "Born Again."
Should any of this have been done? That's up to you to figure out your own ethical and moral code. All we know is that The Notorious B.I.G. is still making a lot of money for somebody, while his spirit, talent, and smooth lyrics live on in his recordings.
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