Pop Culture Locket 10.24.02: Biggie Smalls Is The Illest

Posted by Iago Ali on 10.24.2002

Last week, Tupac; Biggie can't be far behind.

So
last week we took a good hard look at the legacy of Tupac, a legacy that, for me at least, is inextricably tied with the legacy of Christopher Wallace, AKA Biggie Smalls, AKA The Notorious BIG. Little did I know that Biggie's fame/cultural impact isn't nearly the generally acknowledged fact that I assumed it was.

We're going to break format again this week and focus largely on the largest man in hip-hop history (with apologies to the late, great, and way overweight Big Pun). First things first though: let's talk about next week's column.

Lots of mail has been coming in from y'all. We're going to tear through a bunch of it next week. So anybody who has any thoughts on Pac vs. Biggie, the songs of the year, or anything else that I've ever even mentioned in this space, make sure you slam my inbox (that's Christina Aguilera's next single, I heard).

The other major focus of next week's column is gonna be my gradual shift away from hip-hop in terms of what I've been listening to lately. We've been talking a lot about change these days: the world is changing, mainstream music is heading for a change, Freakboy is even thinking of changing his god awful Canadian maple leaf boxer shorts. Now, I don't know how much I buy into all that change, but I know for a fact that I've been seeking out a whole different kind of music lately.

The point is this: let me know what I should be listening to. I'm not even going to tell you what I've been listening too lately. I'm open to new suggestions, no matter how bizarre they may seem. Believe me—next week you're all going to be like "you write all this stuff about hip-hop, but you're listening to THAT?" It's dichotomy and duality—they rule.

One last thing before we move on to Biggie: I need to talk about Work It, Missy' Elliott's latest. There's a lot to say about the song, but more specifically, there are three things I need to get off my chest about the video.

1. That little boy who breakdances might be the cutest thing in the world. He looks a lot like my old boss's son, but it's not him.
2. The little white girl who dances with the other girls looks like Dominique Moceanu (the gymnast), who used to be the cutest thing in the world, before she grew out of her cuteness.
3. And by far the most important thing I'm going to mention in this space, if not in this whole column: Tweet looks sexier in her three second spot in this video than I've ever seen her.

That's all.

No, wait: there is one piece of mail I want to get to before next week. It comes from ryanpres:

"Your column is decent , and i don't mean this to be a rip on you or your writing , i just want to know : What in the hell is "ghetto fabulous" and how can a man who talks in rhyme over a drum machine and sampled bass lines be a thug? i'm curious to know."

Let's take the second part first. Tupac identified himself largely as a thug, as evidence by the massive "THUG LIFE" tattoo across his belly—the primary image many of us have of the man. It was more a reference to where he came from and how he grew up (although sources from Baltimore who had at least passing connections to Pac say he was no more a thug than Greg Biscuiti) than an actual judgment of character.

But you bring up a really valid point: can anyone actually be a thug or a gangsta when they're a hip-hop artist? I've been thinking a lot about the inherent silliness of the whole thing, especially in regards to Biggie. I mean, when you break it down, Biggie was this big fat ugly dude who became a superstar with money everywhere, women everywhere—all because he could make words rhyme. It's bizarre, really—but no more bizarre than any rock stardom, I guess. There's a whole column in here. We'll definitely come back to this concept in a later edition of the Locket.

As for ghetto fabulous, it's a term that's been used pretty extensively for a while now, usually to describe the Diddy school of flashy, expensive designer clothes and giant jewelry being worn by artists who claim to be representing the ghetto. It's a kind of controversial term, debated and defined pretty well in this article, and popularized in songs by Ras Kass, Mystikal, and even Dr. Dre.

I mention it in connection with Biggie because…aw hell. I'll explain that below.

Biggie Smalls is the Illest

What we're going to do is look at a few of the comments I've heard and read about Biggie's role in history versus Tupac's, and I'm going to defend Brooklyn's Finest as best I can. Let's begin:

Tupac was a much bigger star.

Pac was definitely more mainstream. He did a bunch of movies. He was very high-profile. Part of that was due to the fact that he lived in LA. Part of that was also due to the fact that he was the more handsome of the two. Part of that was because of Pac's troubles with the law. I have no problem with calling Pac a bigger star than Biggie.

Biggie Smalls wasn't a mainstream superstar. We can get that out of the way right up front. It's something that it's easy to forget though, especially as a New York City hip-hop fan, because the dude was a MEGASTAR in hip-hop, even before he died. He was one of those rappers who had buzz from the get-go. First Biggie line I ever heard was the opening of Party and Bullshit:

"I was a terror since the public school era"

Later in the same song, he said:

"Moet popping, hoe hopping, ain't no stopping Big Poppa, I'm a BAD BOY"

And then he said this:

"If money smell bad, then ooh Big, you stinking"

And I was hooked. This was an announcement of somebody who was destined to be a legend. He had an incredible flow, a unique voice, a gift for metaphor, and most importantly, this charisma that smacked you in the face. He hadn't done anything yet—Party and Bullshit isn't a classic or anything—but you could feel that something was coming. To a large extent, that's a metaphor for Biggie's career: he did amazing things and was getting ready to really showcase his greatness, but didn't have enough time to drop the classic album he would have need for mainstream success.

That said, Biggie was never going to be a movie star/American icon like Pac (cause Biggie was (a) fat as all hell and (b) perhaps as ugly as he was fat), but he was definitely headed for the list of Greatest MCs. In fact, he was probably already on it. So while his legend was certainly aided and abetted by his death, it was already well on its way to taking shape.

Tupac is a more influential artist

This one I can't agree with at all. For better or worse, Biggie created hip-hop as we know it today, at least from a subject matter perspective. He started the Cristal/weed/bitches/fashion talk almost singlehandedly. If we're talking influence (not skill or importance, but influence), Biggie is AT LEAST Pac's equal.

Seriously, who out there now sounds like they've been influenced by Tupac? How many non-underground MCs are doing legitimate poetic looks at their own pain and life? I wish there were more, but there aren't. (All I can think of is Eminem, who actually is the closest thing I can think of to a combination of Pac's content with Biggie's flow. That's why so many folks are calling Em one of the greatest ever.) I'm not sure I see how Pac is so influential, at least not in the finished products folks are putting out.

Also, Biggie influenced more rhyming STYLES than Pac ever did, mainly because Pac didn't have much of a unique flow. Pac was straightforward and clear. Biggie was intricate and colorful and playful. MCs today might sound like Pac, but Pac sounded like MCs that came before him. When you hear somebody rhyming like Biggie, you know where they got the flow from.

(Most influential rapper of all-time has got to be Rakim, by the way. That's yet another column.)

Biggie would have been nothing with Puffy's beats.

There is absolutely no way that this man is a "product of Diddy's percussion" (to paraphrase Bubba Sparxxx, who once referred to himself as "the greatest since Biggie Smalls." I won't touch that.).

Diddy has done a lot to simultaneously build and destroy Biggie's legend. Lots of folks think Big's posthumous success is a result of Diddy's tributes. I think that does him a disservice.

Biggie MADE Puffy. Biggie is one of the greatest, most original lyricists of all-time. This is his verse from Craig Mack's Flava in Ya Ear (remix) (and forgive the language--it's all direct quote):

"Niggas is mad, I get more butt than ashtrays
Fuck a fair one, I get mine the fast way
Ski mask ways, nigga, ransom notes
Far from handsome, but damn a nigga totes
More Guns than Roses, foes is
Shaking in their boots, invisible bullies like The Gooch
Disappear, vamoose, you're wack to me
Take them rhymes back to the factory
I see
The gimmicks, the wack lyrics
The shit is depressing, pathetic
Please forget it
You're mad cause my style you're admiring
Don't be mad, UPS is hiring
You should have been a cop
Fuck hip-hop
With that freestyle, you bound to get dropped
Not from Houston, but I Rapalot (Houston based record label)
Pack the gat a lot
The flav's about to drop..."

It's complex, it's intricate. Rhymes come at you from everywhere. He drops jokes in there--I mean, who would namedrop the bully from Different Strokes that was often mentioned but rarely seen? Biggie was a lyrical genius, one of the best to ever live. But he was a genius in terms of HOW he said things, not WHAT he said.

Because of that, Biggie and Diddy were a perfect match. Puffy creates lighthearted party beats that aren't deep or intricate, but get out of the way and support lyrics beautifully. Diddy's music is all style over substance; Biggie's lyrics are similar. Biggie would have been a star regardless of what he was rhyming over, but with Diddy's help, he became a legend.

The East Coast builds up Biggie's reputation unfairly.

To an extent, that might be true. But the West Coast does the same for Pac to a similar extent.

The big thing to remember with this argument is that Biggie was the preeminent voice in East Coast hip-hop at a time when the West was just losing its grip. Pac was the biggest star in the hotter market (remember, Snoop and Dre repositioned LA as the center of the hip-hop world), and Biggie (along with Wu-Tang and a few others) managed to build New York back into the dominant force in the business. In that respect, Biggie is monstrously influential--without him, (again for better or worse), there's no Jay-Z, no Murder Inc, no DMX, maybe no Roots, no Mos Def—the course of East Coast hip-hop would have been changed forever.

So if the East Coast stresses the value of Biggie over the value of Pac, it's because Biggie is simply more important on this side of the country.

And that's all I've got.

If we pressed your buttons with this one, just let me know. Next week is the time to be heard.

Until then, as always, my name is Iago Ali, and yeah, I got yo locket, sucka.