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by Killer Mike
Notorious B.I.G. Ready To Die
I
actually started this column to give shine to a lot of albums that I felt never got their proper shine in a lot of publications, or that the rap audience today didn’t have a full appreciation for. I wanted them to realize where we as artists got our influences from. In the South we have an appreciation for artists like UGK and 8Ball & MJG. “Appreciation” probably isn’t the best word. We’re still diehard fans of Outkast, Goodie Mob, Jubilee, DJ Jimi, and 2Live Crew. You can still hear this music in the South; it remains timeless. I started this article to give that to the rest of the world. I wanted kids in other parts of the country to understand that our music didn’t begin with crunk or with the Atlanta movement, the New Orleans movement, or the Memphis movement. It began with the first phase of the Houston movement and Miami. Those are the two cities that got it popping first; shout out to Luke and J Prince. They helped start the machine that we now call Southern hip-hop. Now that the South is dominating the charts and hip-hop culture, I think it’s time that a history lesson be given to the bigger audience who may be just now reading OZONE and wondering how the hell these country muthafuckas got their own publication. I need them to know that we grew up on all this shit. Before there was a Southern or West Coast scene, hip-hop came from the North and we know and understand that and appreciate it. We are inspired by the North, and started an empire ourselves because of that. We as an audience in the South were underappreciated, especially in the early 90s. Ready to Die came out around the same time when Outkast was booed for winning a Source award. They fought an uphill battle to garner lyrical and creative respect. ‘Dre and Big Boi are pieces of a bigger puzzle but they are a prominent piece in the South becoming respected in that lyrical category. Biggie was their parallel in the North at the time, and of course Snoop was an influence in the game, he was running rap at this point. At the time you had Jeru the Damaja, Boot Camp Click and Wu-Tang who all made great East coast hip-hop. Biggie took that shit out of New York City, and I think that’s why he was embraced and loved by a bigger audience on a level that a lot of New York rappers are still baffled by. I think Biggie was a Brooklyn guy at the core who appreciated being able to travel and see different shit because he put it in his rhymes so quick. This is a dude who couldn’t even get Versace in his size but appreciated the beauty of the shit and put it in his rhymes. Whether it was the cars, the women, the liquor or the weed, he really had an appreciation for all the enjoyments of life. That’s pretty much the vibe in the South. You’re supposed to live, enjoy your life, and die. The first time I heard “Juicy,” I knew it was a guy from New York, but it wasn’t that aggressive shit. Biggie mixed a little Snoop, a pinch of the Southern vibe by way of the playa shit, that Brooklyn shit, and some Harlem swag he might have got from Puff and made a new genre of East coast music. He took it off the grimy blocks and pissy hallways and took it to Manhattan and across the world. I want everybody to go back and buy the record and listen to every song for yourself, but here are few songs that jump out to me. “Juicy” Everybody understood that plight. Everybody read Word Up! magazines. Everybody remembers Rappin’ Duke. Everybody could relate to the simple task of making it out the hood and taking care of your mom. Everybody had that dream. That’s how he appealed to people from every background and creed and social demographic. Him and Puff was ingenious for that. Choosing that subject matter at that time was the way to go. The early 90s was fucked up for young Black males, so Biggie coming along and saying, “We can make it,” had a big impact. He was the first one to show prosperity on paper. “The What” At the time Method Man was what was happening in New York and Biggie was just this incredible new dude. I remember buying the re110 OZONE
cord and not even knowing Meth was on it. It didn’t have a real hook; it was just two niggas going at it. Meth had Staten Island on his back and Biggie had Brooklyn on his back and they wasn’t backing down. That shit was incredible. If you listen to Meth, he was using the more New York style, it jumped at you. But Biggie was spitting like a Southern nigga, just styling. He was just as cool as Rakim, but he didn’t try to be overly complex. His complexity was in the simplicity of his raps. He danced simple words around; he was a genius for that shit. Plus he was just well-spoken, you could hear it. He didn’t use his accent as a crutch. Some of my favorite East coast rappers; I couldn’t get my close friends to listen to them because they used their accent for a crutch. But Biggie would use one of your words from your region, which woke you up; it meant something. I remember the first time he said, “Gators for my Detroit players.” I feel that he was smarter than most rappers at the time. Not that the others were dumb, but he just wanted to expand. He knew that being a pure New Yorker lyrically was only gonna him so far. He reached out to everybody, and that’s a good example that young New York rappers can follow these days. Just some advice for the homies up there: Let people know that you fuck with them. “Warning” This is the boss song. Hype Williams did the video; it was one of the best at the time. Warning was a set up for Life After Death, it put him in the boss seat. “Warning” was Frank White rapping. It was like blaxploitation, it served a purpose. Sometimes you need your ego stroked, you need a super nigga to keep you going, and Biggie provided that. This is a big black nigga from Brooklyn getting fly, and people weren’t used to that. We had the Fat Boys but they were more comical. This nigga came through like a boss. Light-skinned long haired singer on his arm, Benzes, everything about this nigga seemed bossy. This was before every rapper wore shades. He created that mystique you see rappers walking around with now. “One More Chance (original version)” This started with the little girl saying, “All you hoes calling here for my daddy, get off his dick. Like that, mommy?” That nigga kept everything ace. Then he had women cussing him out on the telephone, that’s regular nigga shit, every day. Again, this is a big black nigga finessing hoes all throughout the whole song. Everything that should have been a handicap, he made an asset. Even on the remix when he said, “Heartthrob never, black and ugly as ever, however I stay Coogi down to the socks,” he was letting you know that ain’t shit fucking up my self-esteem as long as I’m counting green. He was the first nigga to claim king of New York. He created the crown that all these nigga killing over. But he knew the world was bigger than New York. He traveled; he was the first to start naming islands and inspired all the rappers today to do the same shit. That nigga was like John the Baptist to Jesus; he prophesized that shit. “Unbelievable” DJ Premier, he’s from Texas. Shouts out to Premo, I remember reading an article back in the day when he was talking about making this beat. Who would have thought to take an R Kelly song that wasn’t even really old yet, cut the shit and make a crazy as beat to it? The nigga took that shit and drug it. He really was unbelievable. This was the record on the album that let niggas know if you listen to Jeru, Gang Starr, Wu-Tang, Boot Camp Click, this is what a street rap nigga would do to a beat like this. The nigga was murdering boom bap beats. It showed me that you could finesse any beat. Fast forward to what he did on the next album with Bone, it showed that he was a rap machine with no boundaries. “Suicidal Thoughts” After all the fly shit he said thru the course of the record, it’s amazing that he would end it like this. It’s like the album was a dream and at the end he’s still like, “I wanna die, I’m broke, I’ma piece of shit, maybe it would be better if I’m dead.” He was real honest. He was honest about Versace and drinking the best, a lot of niggas was fronting about living that lifestyle. Talking about keeping it real. But at the end of the day they were still in the Waldorf Astoria. He and ‘Pac had the unique ability to talk to your core and talk to that part of you that’s dark and nobody sees. I think that made him one of the greatest. He wasn’t afraid to be more than the king of New York. - Killer Mike (as told to Maurice G. Garland)