Issue date: 3/8/07 Section: Culture

by Damian Garde

Daily Lobo



There's a simple explanation for the reverence toward people like Sam Cooke, Jimi Hendrix and Gram Parsons: They all died before having a chance to suck.

The same rule applies to the late Notorious BIG, who will have been deceased for 10 years Friday.

Every day, rap snobs in record shops worldwide hash out the same debate of whether Biggie is the greatest MC of all time. The answer is yes, but not because he's necessarily the most talented.

Rather, Biggie had the uncanny ability to be everything to everyone. He had a chameleonic appeal that allowed him to keep cocaine cadences with Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, wax Muslim with Method Man and stunt in a shiny suit with the Lox - all the while remaining entirely believable. "Gimme the Loot" even finds Biggie in a schizophrenic duet with himself, trading verses with his best Sadat X impression.

His first album saw him telling his girlfriend, "We lie together, cry together, I swear to God, I hope we (expletive) die together," but only after telling another woman at gunpoint, "I don't give a (expletive) if you're pregnant, give me the baby rings and the 'No. 1 mom' pendant." Biggie sounds just as comfortable playing lothario in "One More Chance" as he does in "Suicidal Thoughts," the album closer that finds him blowing his brains out in song.

The thing is, Raekwon was a better Mafioso rapper, Gravediggaz were more convincing ultraviolent villains and Kool Keith was better at misogynistic lyricism. Biggie, however, was the people's MC. After the success of Ready to Die, Biggie further crafted his sound toward what people wanted to hear. Where his debut found him to be a small-time hustler ducking his fate in "Everyday Struggle," Life After Death saw Biggie as a coke-peddling don making major moves. Similarly, as Ready to Die had a subtle R&B influence in "One More Chance" and "Juicy," Biggie's sophomore release was more commercially minded, featuring two songs with soul-schmaltz quartet 112, not to mention the Diana Ross-sampling "Mo' Money Mo' Problems" - arguably the factors keeping Life After Death from attaining the classic status of its predecessor.

However, the shortcomings of those around him only serve as a further testament to Biggie's ability. How a human being could turn a sample of "Juicy Fruit" by Mtume into "Juicy," the closest thing hip-hop has to a standard, is completely beyond me.

Biggie's legacy remains the subject of clamoring bloggers shirking their nine-to-fives, some shouting that he bit everything good he ever did from Tupac, some arguing that, if he hadn't died, everything currently wrong with hip-hop would be magically fixed. To me, however, Christopher Wallace's body of work stands as a time capsule of everything rap could be at the time - at once malicious, boastful, reflective, self-loathing and tender.

Or, perhaps Ghostface Killah said it best with, "When Biggie died, they came out with

Biggie fries."

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