Johnny Boy

What's your favorite Notorious B.I.G. song?

I've followed Biggie since he first came out in the early 90s. I always thought his delivery was so unique and so different from anything I had ever heard before at the time. It just blew me away, and still does. I don't particularly respect everything he did as a person, but his music really really connected with me. I think he was a genius in the rap genre and I think it's about time there was a thread about him. If there already is a thread dedicated to Biggie (which I doubt) then please connect this thread with the one that already exists.

My favorite Biggie song was really hard for me to decide since I love most of them... In the end I had to go with "Unbelievable". I used to run track, and this song would get me hype as hell before those 100, 200, and 400 meter runs. There's so many songs I didn't have room to include in the poll like Machine Gun Funk, Flava in Ya Ear (Remix), Dreams of Fuckin' an RnB Bitch, Party and Bullshit, Dead Wrong, Everyday Struggle... the list goes on.

I actually hate the song "Hypnotize", but I included it in the poll because that's the song many people think of when they think of Biggie. It's very commercial and lots of people who never bought his first album seem to like it for some reason...

mndtrp

Where's the option for "None"? This was one rapper I never got into at all. His voice just grated on me.

Johnny Boy

Well the thread title says "Biggie Smalls fans", so I figured the people that weren't "fans" just wouldn't care enough to vote, much less open the thread.

zombiezilla

I was hoping for a "none" option as well, mndtrp. I guess great "mnds" think alike, eh? LOL

EdTheRipper

Juicy.
It was the first song I ever heard from him and it has always just stuck with me.

mndtrp

Well, I didn't vote. I simply hear a lot about how most people think Biggie was wonderful, and I felt like the other side should make an appearance.

lee majors

Unbelievable is my favorite song of his by far. Premiere produced it, right?

ryuryu2949

Voted for Juicy, although One More Chance and Big Poppa came close.

The Bus

Biggie's sickest song by far is "The Wickedest" which appeared on a number of releases, including the original Mister Cee mixtapes and I believe, most officially, in Funkmaster Flex's The Mix Tape Vol. 4.

"Juicy" is nice, and the version on DJ Cappel's Blue Eyes Meets Bed Stuy is fantastic as Frank Sinatra does an intro and Biggie sings over beatbreaks from "New York, New York".

My favorite freestyle of his (besides "The Wickedest") is the last one he did before he passed, which I believe was on The Wake Up Show, and was basically a slightly altered version of "You're Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You)" which is my favorite album track of his - in fact, "My Downfall" and "Long Kiss Goodnight" and that song make up an awesome 3-song closer to that double album.

What irks me most about Biggie is that he was almost always backed by ridiculous super-glossy neo-soul grooves that sound as dated as OJ Simpson jokes now. But his style, his flow, is still unmatched, I think. Listen to Blue Eyes Over Bed Stuy if you can find it. The Sinatra strings and deep, heavy drums that DJ Cappel sets up are flawless, and lets you hear Biggie without having all the candy-coated RnB that Puffy tried to put on every single fucking song.

Johnny Boy

Yeah, DJ Premier.

I agree, but I thought this was mostly a problem after 1995. I loved most of the beats he rhymed over prior to then. I pretty much hated the entiriety of the 1997 Life After Death album. There are only about 2 or 3 songs on that double album that I even tolerate. To me he just changed his style completely, and I could only think to myself, maybe God killed him for making such a bad album. I'm kidding.

I've never heard Blue Eyes Over Bed Stuy but it sounds cool.

The Ferret

Everyday Struggle followed by mostly anything off of Ready to Die.

The Bus

The rhymes and flow are great on Life After Death. But it's just a terribly produced album with the exception of maybe 3 or 4 songs.

Tarantino

It's a toss up. Playa's Anthem, Sky's The Limit (w/ 112), there are too many.

= J

edytwinky

I was always a big fan of One More Chance.

maxinquaye

in my mind 'dead wrong' is the best example of slinking lyrical dexterity that i've ever been privy to. it's like great, pulp literature. i know that it's not a song really *about* anything, per se, but the poetry, the dirty, dirty poetry, is absolute genius.

if i had to pick a second i think 'things done changed' is a masterpiece of revisionist nostaglia.

biggie was a genius. at one point i to didn't understand his appeal. after he died, i saw all those people jumping on cars during his funeral march (or whatever it was, exactly) and wondered what it was about him that spurred that kind of emotion in people. after delving deeper into his material it became all too clear. if this guy was a writer he would one day be reverred like hemingway. i've never heard such an intangible charisma buried within a flow, a flow composed with such clever, playful intelligence. his experimental approach towards wordplay, cadence, phrasing, and the english language in general should be studied in unversities.

Ozzy's Bat Head

My Fave is #!*@ Me (interlude). How classic is the line "Pickle Juice drinking...Jenny Craig eatin" Sorry, I guess that's for the old school fans.

Seriously, Big is my alltime favorite. Great thread, enjoy reading the thoughtful responses here. Bus & Johnny, didn't know about the Wickedest, where would I find this?

Related news, you have to check out the Rolling Stone article from early Dec on the Big murder case. We all know how shady this case has been handled, but OMG, the incompetence is epic on this!

Johnny, I demand you follow this thread up with a poll on favorite Big lyrics.

Johnny Boy

I think most of his lyrics on Life After Death are above average for the every day rapper, but he's not an every day rapper. He's Biggie Smalls. I wanted to hear some hardcore shit. After listening to Ready to Die and being so accustomed to the hardcore delivery, it was really hard listening to his passive second album. I loved the 10 Crack Commandments, liked Kick in the Door, and that was pretty much it.

He was actually in a textbook for one of my Music culture classes when I was a sophmore in college. I was really surprised to see that at the time. We spent half a day talking about him in class, which was really cool.

"Slim Fast blindin'.... oreo cookie eatin'.... *slurp* *slurp* *slurp* black greasy motha fucka!"

Maybe I will some day. Or we could just post some of his best lyrics in this thread.

You guys are getting me in the mood for some Frank White. *Turns on 'Warning'*

Daryl

Damn - where would I start? Biggie is, IMO, the best of all time, so this makes it hard for me to narrow it down to just one

I'm partial to Party and Bullshit because that was the first time I heard him spit. Even then, he was a step above the rest ("I used to have the trey-duece and the duece-duece in my bubblegoose, now I got the Mac in my knapsack" - just a ridiculous flow). Him doing two completely different styles/voices on "Gimme the Loot" made that another favorite. Also loved the west coast beats version of "Real N-ggas" over that appeared on the DJ Mister Cee mixtape (not a big fan of those verses being cut up and re-released a million times on other songs after his death, though). But my vote in this poll, and my all-time favorite Biggie track, will always be "Warning" - storytelling, flow, minimal but driving beat - this track just kills me every time.

Damn, I didn't even mention "I Got a Story to Tell", or "Juicy" or his verse on "Victory" or.....

The Bus

Got it locked like the penitentiary
Niggaz mention me for M.C. execution, who you choosin?
The wack MC? Or the black fat MC?
Jack Dempsey would start shakin
All it's takin, is some marijuana and I'm makin
MC's break fast like flapjacks and bacon
Backspins to windmill, who's still the gin drinker
Ill thinker - explodin when the paper hits the ink, uhh
Take your gangsta chronicles, turn to page 666
Holocaust, Big the merciless
Niggaz press they luck-and they get a buttfuck-in
Straight up the ass, raw dog with the rash
and I don't fuck wit the condoms
The condoms is a problem from the AIDS gettin sprayed
Diseases, Big pleases, MC's across the seas
is just the way I clutch my prey, hey
I'm crazy and deranged
Blowin niggaz out the frame, simple and plain
But gettin back, to the black, rhinocerous of rap
Big took a loss, how preposterous is that *****?

(from "Wickedest")

saoirse

There are so many good ones. I can't pick a favorite. I do like the Ready to Die album the best though. Not a bad track on it. Life After Death is great too, but there are a few songs I'm not lovin on there. While Hypnotize may be a bit over hyped and became too big, I still like it (though it's probably one of my least favorites of his).

How is the new album that's out. Is it worth buying or just a gimmick/money grab?

GameGenie

Suicidal thoughts is definently my favorite biggie song. Some of my other favs are ten crack commandments and machine gun funk.

Ozzy's Bat Head

Darryl, yeah, Party & BS is classic; "We're smoking, drinking, got this hooker thinking, if money smell bad then this brotha Biggie stinking"

And I agree that Hypnotize was overlyhyped, but it does contain the line that I still like to use on the hoop court, Sweet like licorice.

Johnny Boy

I like some of these lines because of what Biggie says, and others I like because of how he says them. Most are a combination of both.

Some of my favorite Biggie one-liners:

"...I get more butt than ash trays..."

"Hunt me or be hunted, I got three hundred and fifty seven ways..."

"I got the cleanest meanest penis, ya neva seen this stroke of genius"

"...Smokin' mad Newports cause I'm doing court for an assault that I caught in Bridgeport, New York."

"..I got my honey on the Amtrack with the crack in the crack of her ass, two pounds of hash in the stash..."

"..Runnin from the police? Picture that, ***** I'm too fat, I fuck around I'll catch a asthma attack."

"When I met ya I admit my first thoughts was a trip, ya looked so good I'd suck on ya daddy's dick, I never felt that way in my life, it didn't take long before I made ya my wife."

"If you ain't got the clientale say hell no, cause they goin' want they money rain sleet hail snow."

"I got techniques rippin' out my butt cheeks. Sleep on my stomach so I don't fuck up my sheets."

"Hail Mary? Fuck her. I never knew her. I'd probablly screw her. And dumb her body in the sewer."

"They sayin' I dissed her cause I'm fuckin' her sister.. a message to the fellas that really gets'um pissed unhh."

"All my life I been considered as the worst, lyin' to my mother even stealin' out her purse, crime after crime, from drugs to extortion, I know my mother wish she got a fuckin' abortion."

"M.E.T.H.-O Shit! Look at them lips and them hips on that bitch!"

And the list goes on. I could probably keep writing Biggie lines forever, but I'll stop here, for now.

saoirse

I seriously sing that song line in the shower to my wife all the time.

Smithers

Gimme The Loot