“Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis
When I was dead broke, man I couldn’t picture this”

The third verse of “Juicy” opens with possibly the most surprising lines of the Notorious B.I.G.’s career.  After two verses of celebrating the pleasures the high life brings - limousines, poolside interviews, the finest weed and liquor - Biggie pats himself on the back for owning video games.  This is baffling, and perhaps humorous, to the casual listener.  It seems absurd that while Biggie was standing on the corner, doing what he felt he had to do to support his daughter, he was thinking, “Man, I sure would love to play some Super Mario right now.” And then you remember that, despite everything he had been through, Biggie was still a child.

Christopher Wallace began selling drugs at the age of twelve.  He was arrested for the first time at 17.  At 19 he was arrested, and spent nine months in jail, for selling crack in North Carolina.  A year later his daughter was born and he released his first single.  From there it was a whirlwind as he climbed the ladder to become one of the most commercially and critically acclaimed rappers in the world.  And his fame only grew when he was shot and killed twelve days before his 25th birthday.  In his short lifetime Biggie lived through more experiences, for better or worse, than most of us will in 75-80 years.

While Biggie formed his rap career around the stories of his Bed-Stuy childhood he never seemed to garner quite the same backlash as artists such as NWA.  This is partially due to the fact that he came later, after the shock factor had died down.  But I think a large part of this is due to Biggie’s sincerity.  While NWA, the Getto Boys, and others opened eyes with their brutal depictions of inner-city life, they can almost be seen as caricatures of gangsters.  Their catalogs derive exclusively from a vivid, exaggerated re-telling of street life.  The violence was there but the human element seemed to be missing.  Biggie filled in this blank.  His narratives were painfully vivid and honest.

Before I proceed I want to make it perfectly clear that I don’t condone many of Biggie’s life choices.  He sold drugs, took part in robberies, and hit his wife.  These activities are unacceptable no matter the economic background of the individual.  That said, while somebody like Biggie is indeed responsible for his own choices, we as a society are responsible with providing him the equal means of making these choices.  And Biggie’s personal struggles, which he chose to make public, can go a long way towards educating our society on these issues.

Take “Me and My Bitch.”  Biggie tells the story of a relationship through the hardened eyes of a gangster; arguments over loyalty, trust against snitching, and domestic violence all play into the equation.  But despite his hardened attitude, beneath it all lies his truly tender core.  For all their grittiness, no West Coast gangsta rapper ever would have been bold enough to drop the line, “I swear to God I hope we fuckin’ die together” when talking about a woman (and you never heard Big claiming to not love hoes.)  In the third verse, when Biggie’s hustling gets his girl murdered, the listener can feel his pain.  He is a master storyteller and the whole scene plays out vividly in our minds; Biggie strapping on his vest, stashing the gun around the block, pushing his way to the front of the crowd, where his heart is broken as he sees the body of the woman who, despite the accepted gangsta rap norms, he was brave enough to describe as his “best friend.”

The personal touch is found time and again over Biggie’s brief, two-album career.  On Ready to Die he depicts himself as a hardened street thug and on Life After Death he plays on the more sophisticated mobster image.  But even his most brutal cuts are peppered with references to his love for his daughter and his hatred for the true bad guys, the ones who would kill innocent women and children without batting an eye.

And of course there is “Juicy.”  No rap song has ever quite summed up the rags-to-riches ideology like this one.  It is the product of Biggie’s work to get off the block.  He had worked hard to achieve legitimate success.  “Juicy” served as a celebratory farewell to his old life (”I never thought it could happen, this rappin’ stuff / I was too used to packin’ gats and stuff.”)  The tragedy is that his history could not forget about him.  Biggie was shot and killed on March 9, 1997.  His killer is still unknown.

The human element of Biggie’s music helped make him a legend.  NWA forced affluent Americans to acknowledge the violence of the inner city.  The Notorious B.I.G. took it a step further by making the public realize that there are real people with real emotions living in these conditions.  Many of those drug dealers we are so quick to demonize are nothing more than children, standing on the corner wishing they were playing video games.

Check Out:

Notorious B.I.G. - “Juicy”

Categories: Editorial
Tags: Notorious B.I.G., Retrospective