The BIG Details 3/9

“The greatest rapper of all time died on March 9” - Canibus (Second Round K.O.

“Say he’s no Big and Pac but he’s close, how am I supposed to win when they got me fighting ghosts.” - Jay Z (Grammy Family Freestyle)

“No use in me tryin to be lyin', I been trying to be signed

Trying to be a millionaire, how I used two lifelines

In the same hospital where Biggie Smalls died

The doctor said I had blood clots, but I ain't Jamaican, man” - Kanye West (Thorugh The Wire)

On March 9, 1997, The Notorious B.I.G. died. I remember sitting in my Dad’s Ford Explorer when the news broke. I was 7 at the time. It was the first time that I had a connection to someone dying where I had an understanding of what death was. 18 years later I still regard Christopher Wallace as the greatest to ever put hands on a microphone. He had a way of turning semi-autobiographical tales into wonderful stories. To this day, people wonder “Who was the New York Knick in his song Got a Story to Tell?”.

Nowadays we don’t ask these sort of things. Part of the reason is because he had a verifiable past criminal life. The other reason, I contend, is that the Notorious B.I.G. had a way of telling a story that made it seem real. Every character was fleshed out. Random details, from the important to the innocuous are thrown in. All of this comes with Biggie’s impeccable flow. It’s one thing to have a good story but he delivered it in an amazing way. In Somebody’s Gotta Die,  from his album Life After Death Biggie masterfully delivers a story.

♫ I'm sittin in the crib dreamin' about Leer jets and coupes

The way Salt shoops and how they sell records like Snoop, (oops!)

I'm interrupted by a doorbell, 3:52, who the hell is this? ♫ - Notorious B.I.G. (Somebody’s Gotta Die)

In the opening bars of Somebody’s Gotta Die, he gives details about what he’s doing at 4 o’clock in the morning. This isn’t the meat of the story. The meat of the song involves him getting revenge for a fallen friend. (And by fallen I mean shot “no less than 50 times”). But the opening bars gives a setting to the revenge plot. First, he’s dreaming at 3:52 in the morning. This isn’t a night where he’s out having a good time. He’s dreaming about Salt from Salt-N-Pepa, a nod to Just Playin’ (Dreams).  He’s also dreaming about being successful, both in talking about private jets and nice cars, but also selling records like Snoop. Snoop, then Snoop Doggy Dogg, sold 4 million copies of his debut album, Doggystyle. Of course, Snoop was a rival rapper, a West Coast rapper who once stomped on New York buildings in a video. Biggie still shows respect to Snoop’s success, but because he’s a rival, Biggie says “oops” after the line.  That line also reflects the mid-90’s time period. The last line “Who the hell is this” is a nod to Warning, a song from his first album where he says the same line after getting a page from “Pop from the Barbershop” at 5:46 in the morning. 

♫"I gets up quick, cocks my shit

Stop the dogs from barkin', then proceed to walk in

It's a face that I seen before

My nigga Sing, we used to sling on the 16th floor

Check it, I look deeper

I see blood up on his sneakers

And his fist gripped a chrome four-fifth

So I dip, nigga, is you creepin or speakin?"♫

Sing comes to Biggie’s door with a .45 in hand (gun not record) and blood on his sneakers. A paranoid Biggie asks why Sing is there. Sing and Biggie used to sell drugs together, but it’s unclear to Biggie why Sing is there now.

♫He tells me C-Rock just got hit up at the Beacon

I opens up the door, pitiful, "Is he in critical?

Retaliation for this one won't be minimal

Cuz I'm a criminal way before the rap shit

Bust the gat shit, Puff won't even know what happened

If it's done smoothly, silencers on the Uzi

Stash in the hooptie, my alibi, any cutie

With a booty that done fuck Big Pop

Head spinnin, reminiscin' 'bout my man C-Rock♫

So now we know why Sing showed up, unexpectedly. Biggie’s friend, C-Rock got shot at the Beacon Theatre (Details later). Big finally lets him and without any further discussion, Biggie is thinking about what he’s going to do to the people who shot C-Rock. We can assume that C-Rock got killed, because when Biggie pitifully asks if he’s in critical condition, there’s no response (Details later). Another small detail comes when he says Puff (daddy, later Diddy, then Sean Combs), biggie’s Manager, “won’t even know what happened. There’s an real life, though apocryphal, story where Puff called Biggie to come to New York. Biggie leaves his drug hideout shortly before police came, raided the place and arrested his partner. The story is legendary and is veracity is in question. What is definitely true is that, even in his music, Biggie is trying to keep his criminal activity hidden from his manager.

   
♫Fillin' clips, he explained our situation

Precisely, so we know exactly what we facin'

"Some kid named Jason, In a Honda station wagon

Was braggin', about how much loot and crack he stackin'

Rock had a grip so they formed up a clique

A small crew

'Round the time I was locked up with you"

"True indeed,"

"But yo nigga, let me proceed

Don't fill them clips too high, give them bullets room to breathe

Damn where was I? Yeah...♫

      

In Verse 2, Sing explains what’s going on and it’s mostly self explanatory. Of course, while he’s telling the story, Biggie and Sing are both loading guns. Also, you find out that Sing, who used to sell drugs with Biggie on the 16th floor, also spent time in jail with Biggie while C-Rock and Jason were selling drugs together. During a  small pause in the action and some comic relief, Sing loses track of the story of how C-Rock died while reprimanding Biggie about how Big loads his gun. The small details matter here.

♫Went outta town, blew the fuck up

C-Rock went home and Jay got stuck the fuck up

Hit him twice, caught him right for the Persian white

Pistol whipped his kids, and taped up his wife (Niggas is trife)

He figured Rock set 'em up, no question

Wet em up no less than 50 shots in his direction"

"How many shots?" "Man nigga, I seen mad holes"

"What kinda gats?" "Heckler & Kochs and Calicos♫

C-Rock and Jason were successful, but then when C-Rock went home, Jason got robbed. The people who robbed Jason stole his heroin (Persian White), tied up his wife and pistol whipped Jason’s kids. This fleshes out Jason’s motives. After a brutal robbery which, “coincidentally”, happens right after C-Rock leaves, Jason thinks that C-Rock was behind it. Later Jason shoots C-Rock. Biggie interrupts the story, incredulously to ask how many times C-Rock was shot at. A lot.

♫But fuck that, I know where all them niggas rest at

In the buildin' hustlin', and they don't be strapped

Supreme in black is downstairs, the engine runnin'

Find a bag to put the guns in, and c'mon if you're comin'♫

Sing is still talking. Sing knows where to find Jason and Sing knows Jason and his goons won’t be armed. A black car is waiting and the engine is still running. Sing ends the verse making it clear that he’s going there now, regardless of whether Biggie will accompany him.

♫Exchanged hugs and pounds before the throw down

How it's gonna go down, lay these niggas low-down

“Slow down, fuck all that plannin' shit

Run up in they cribs, and make the cats abandon ship"

“See niggas like you do ten year bids

Miss the niggas they want, and murder innocent kids”

“Not I, one niggas in my eye

That's Jason

Ain't no slugs gonna be wasted”

Revenge I'm tastin at the tip of my lips

I can't wait to fill my clip in his hips♫

Right before the hit happens, someone gets scolded. The person getting scolded doesn’t want to be careful and instead wants to run in firing. One of the flaws in the storytelling here is that it’s not clear who is being scolded and who is doing the scolding. My interpretation is that Sing is doing the scolding and Biggie is being scolded. Sing seems to be the experienced one in this song from the previous verses and Biggie is the excitable one. But Biggie responds that he won’t miss when he shoots Jason and Jason is the only target he wants.

♫Revenge I'm tastin at the tip of my lips

I can't wait to fill my clip in his hips

"Pass the chocolate Thai"

Sing ain't lie

There's Jason with his back to me

Talkin to his faculty♫

Biggie smokes with revenge on his mind and he sees Jason facing away from Biggie talking to his crew. Jason and his crew are “Fish in a Barrel”, as the saying goes. 

♫I start to get a funny feeling

Put the mask on in case his niggas start squealin'

Scream his name out (Ay yo playboy!), squeezed six, nothin' shorter

Nigga turned around holdin' his daughter♫

Biggie does enough to put a mask on so he’s unidentifiable (Aside: Biggie weighed nearly 400 pounds, it seems like the mask is a bit unnecessary). After he yells for Jason, to turn around, BIG shoots him, and realizes that Jason is holding his kid. As the song ends, you here a lot of commotion and you hear a baby crying.

At the end of the song, Biggie gets his revenge, but his revenge results in a kid being orphaned. Throughout his music, he could weave a tale, ranging from dark humor to tragic. For example, at the end of Niggas Bleed the guys who are coming to kill him get their Range Rover towed, because they stupidly “double parked by a hydrant.”  In Me and My Bitch, his girlfriend gets killed. In Suicidal Thoughts, the last song on the Ready to Die album, Biggie shoots himself.

Sometimes you know that you’re not long for this earth. Biggie’s first album was titled Ready to Die. Biggie died of multiple gunshot wounds on March 9, 1997.  On March 25, 1997, his second album, Life After Death, was released. It was a great loss for rap. We will never know where his career would have gone. What we are left with is an incredible sample of storytelling across those two albums. His music provides a blueprint that other rappers would do well to follow.