BIGGIE AIN’T The G.O.A.T.
March 11, 2010 by The Company Man
Filed under Opinion
The Company Man was always critical of Jay-Z.
Not because he didn’t make dope songs or because his skills weren’t up to par. A quick peruse through his early catalog is more than enough to prove the contrary. Whether on Reasonable Doubt, or parts of Volume 1, or most of Volume 2 and Volume 3 — his mic always sounded nice.
The hits were always there. The talent was always apparent.
Despite the product’s consistency and undeniable Freshness, the seemingly one dimensionality of his content left him lumped in the middle with every other hustler, thug, gangster, money, hoes, clothes rapper that claimed late 90s airwaves.
I knew he was a hustler who just happened to rap. I knew he could match a triple platinum artist buck by buck with only a single going Gold. I knew I couldn’t floss on his level.
I knew more about Jay-Z’s possessions than I knew about Jay-Z The Person.
And when determining who is the Greatest Of All Time — the proverbial GOAT of this rap shit — all contenders must exhibit range. All contenders must connect on a personal, human level. All contenders have to have more to talk about than “Money, Cash, Hoes.”
FACT.
Hypocritically, I never held Biggie to that standard.
Maybe because of nostalgia, or how both albums hit harder than “Down goes Frazier”, or the unfortunate appreciation we only have for people and their legacy after they’ve passed away — but B.I.G.’s catalog was similarly one dimensional. And somehow I never flinched when his name inevitably ended up in GOAT conversations.
Ready To Die and Life After Death were raucous, unapologetic lyrical onslaughts that rattled the trunk just as hard as they rattled the thought process. Puff Daddy Diddy’s marketing genius ensured ubiquitousness. Biggie’s gift of gab garnered wide ranging respect.
No doubt.
But neither project displays a broad appreciation for the human experience. We learn most about the person behind The Notorious BIG on tracks like “Juicy” and “Everyday Struggle” and “Sky’s The Limit.” Otherwise, its largely rollicking robbery with reason raps under the morbid theme of certain death.
We got “Me & My Bitch” and “F*cking You Tonight”, but we don’t truly know about Biggie’s feelings on love and relationships.
We got “Mo Money Mo Problems”, but ironically — on the song — he fails to actually delve into what it means to have more money and more problems.
We don’t know anything about BIG’s political positions or societal views other than that “he knows how it feels to wake up f*cked up. / Pockets broke as hell / another rock to sell.”
We don’t know as much as we could have. We don’t know as much as we should have.
Christopher Wallace always receives credit for being comfortable with being himself. He highlighted the appeal in being fat, black, and ugly as ever. And I’m just about positive he’s the only male rapper on the planet who could get away with lines like “you look so good / I’ll suck on your daddy’s d*ck.” At that point in his brief life, he gave us exactly who he was.
Few then could do it like he did it. Like Jay-Z, the talent was obvious.
But Jay didn’t put the pieces together until The Blueprint — his seventh album! It wasn’t until tracks like “Song Cry” and “Mama Loves Me” and “Heart of The City” and “Renegade” showed Hova the artist had more to offer than “sex, murder, mayhem, romance for the street” that he was able to bum rush his way into every GOAT conversation.
It took time for him to prove himself. To get to the point where he could earnestly exhibit vulnerability. To get to the point where the person stepped beyond the possessions.
BIG undoubtably alluded to having broader opinions on other aspects of the human experience. Due to timing and/or Diddy’s marketing strategy, we were never privileged to those thoughts.
Unfortunately — no matter the calculation — two albums of market changing, one dimensional lyrical history making is not enough to claim GOAT status for any artist, dead or alive.
I’m not saying he wasn’t Great. But I can’t say he was the Greatest.
u stupid on Thu, 11th Mar 2010 2:16 pm
do you fools listen to music or do you just skim through it? in jay-z’s career i learned about his struggle in marcy projects that he sold drugs, he felt forced to dumb his music down, he hated his dad, he reconciled with his dad, his x girlfriend had a miscarriage amongst other things. no artist gets as personal as jay-z and biggie would get. them cats leave their hearts in the booth.
all these corny ass backpack rappas only rap about rap. that shit is corny.
FIRE THE COMPANY MAN!!! HE SUCKS ASS!
wtf? on Thu, 11th Mar 2010 2:21 pm
how could a site called BROOKLYN bodega post an article like the week of biggie’s death? that’s some real corny “this’ll cause controversy and get our site hits” bullshit marketing that the bodega claims to b above.
Don’t disrespect the man’s legacy, and your critique of Jay-Z shows you hardly listened to his music aside from the singles. Soon You’ll Understand and This Can’t Be Life were both on Dynasty. Where I’m From, You Must Love ME, and Lucky Me were all on Volume One. all those tracks are personal and tells you the life of Jay-Z.
I concur w/ u stupid. fire this man. he sux.
that dude on Thu, 11th Mar 2010 2:25 pm
i have no words for this disrespectful ass article. esp. on this particular week
R.I.P Biggie Smalls. Bodega def dropped the ball w/ this one.
Dat Nigga Wain on Thu, 11th Mar 2010 2:40 pm
nothin betta than good ole anonymous hate from cats who miss da point. this aint a diss piece. This is real perspective. so just cuz he dead, he suppose to be errybody’s no.1? get da fluck outta here!
If u only got two albums, how u better than pac? ra? nas? jay? kast? krs? u mean to tell me dat biggie is still greater than all them???? somebody sippin da diddy kool aid.
again…get da fluck outta here!
that dude on Thu, 11th Mar 2010 2:59 pm
the timing of the article is in bad taste. the title is also in bad taste. have respect for the pioneers that have passed esp. on the anniversary of their deaths.
and what does anonymous have to w/ anything? if i reveal myself wat, you’re gonna come fight me? fuck outta here, it’s the internet dumbass you’re suppose to be anonymous.
the perspective is ridiculous because it makes a terrible assessment of both jay-z and biggie’s career. Biggie is the only artist to do the double album justice.
and you mr. waine seem to b the only person to ever come to this fuckboy’s aid….could you two b the same person. i’m thinking…YES
enidp on Thu, 11th Mar 2010 4:31 pm
The only one that is not anonymous would be me. Wain, that dude, wtf? and u stupid-u are all anonymous, I think you should all step up.
First, I wanna say this is America and everyone is entitled to there opinion. That’s what makes America so great.
Second, I think that releasing this piece at this time is not kool.
Third, I love Biggie’s music and In my personal opinion he was the greatest I saw the growth and potential in him. But, the truth is that he is gone. We can’t linger on with the past forever. or can we?
Enid P.
j royal on Thu, 11th Mar 2010 8:10 pm
i dont even wanna get into this, but come the fuck on…you clearly never listened to reasonable doubt. “Regrets”????????? damn. and u clearly never listened to ready to die, because “me and my bitch” is actually quite introspective and “Suicidal thoughts” is probably one of the most somber and powerfully vulnerable moments that a rapper has ever allowed us to enter. rapper’s do not need to be overtly political to be interesting, intelligent, or transcendent. fuck this dude.
uberVU - social comments on Thu, 11th Mar 2010 9:07 pm
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by TheCompanyMan: Article: BIGGIE AIN’T The G.O.A.T. http://bit.ly/cNjwrG via @brooklynbodega @labeautifulmess @jaharaq @run_p #BIG…
David J. Hamilton on Thu, 11th Mar 2010 9:13 pm
Poor timing. Poor Choice of words.
A.S.K on Thu, 11th Mar 2010 10:08 pm
Biggie didn’t need to do a “love” song for us to understand his feelings about relationships. He didn’t need to do a “political” song for us to understand his sociological views. All of those things are revealed in the content he left us, but you have to look deeper than the song titles and hooks. I agree with J Royal on “Suicidal Thoughts,”–that track is extremely painful and honest and, I think, still expresses the deep and hidden feelings of many young black males in America to this day. And “Me and My Bitch” is sincerely about love, devotion and commitment. Biggie might not have used language that we immediately associate with vulnerability and emotion, then again, many brothers don’t. But he did, in his own way, tell us exactly how he felt.
j royal on Thu, 11th Mar 2010 11:33 pm
if anything, the reason biggie may very well be the GOAT (although this is disputable, yes), is because of his expressive emotionality, his extreme self-consciousness, both of what he was saying and how he said it. Even songs like “gimme da loot” are more than songs about “rollicking robbery.” They are dark tales a la Dostoevsky about a man’s survival in an immoral and highly oppressive condition. whether he was rapping explicitly about the latent feelings of self-degradation and inadequacy that plague poor black males or about his life in the streets, he always brought a supreme consciousness of his actions, always delivered with an emotional lyricism–not lyricism in the traditional hip-hop sense (although he obviously had that…), but lyricism in the sense it refers to the powerful, vivid, and often highly figurative language he used. Biggie was more than “money clothes and hoes/ and puffin line optimos”…and even as he claimed this, he always knew, as did we, that his humanity was clear, exposed, and inimitable. To assume that biggie is one dimensional is, to me, unfathomable–he is probably one of the most complex, multidimensional characters hip-hop has ever witnessed. Your claim is not only objectively wrong to anyone who is familiar with his body of work, but highly disrespectful to the memory of a man who gave so much to the world through his art. If you think he is not the GOAT, you may have reasons to do so, but certainly not for those that you have provided. He is, and will always be, missed dearly by the entire hip-hop community. RIP Christopher George Latore Wallace forever. Brooklyn, we made it.
Solomon Jazz on Fri, 12th Mar 2010 6:38 am
Cool article, Company Man!
The songs that you mention for Biggie as far as where you hear elements of his personality, I share the same sentiment.
This is an undeniable fact – some people think Biggie is the greatest. But these people have to realize that others don’t necessarily think the same way. I thought Biggie was good. He was clever with his rhymes and he came out during a time when not too many solo rappers were really standing out.
Biggie’s talent (combined with Diddy’s marketing tactics) made people notice the East Coast/NY/Brooklyn again. That is what I think made Biggie GREAT. The same thing goes for Jay Z (except the Diddy part).
I did not realize that on the Blueprint you can hear similar elements from Jay Z (I liked the album). I did not really begin to like Jay Z as a hip hop artist (as opposed to just a business man who can rap) until the Black Album. When I heard how he broke down the music business and why he made the choices to make the music he made, my respect for Jay grew.
Some of us have to realize that when a journalist writes opinion pieces, it’s not meant to disrespect anyone. In this case, I think they are written to express unpopular views that need to be heard/read so that we can develop balanced perspectives in life.
It would be unrealistic to always read/hear that Biggie was the greatest, because it might not be 100% true and there is no way to prove it. At some point we have to be cool with the fact that Biggie was indeed a good emcee. Marketing tactics aside, that is something I think we can all agree on.
- Solomon Jazz
Nile on Tue, 16th Mar 2010 11:20 am
Yo people need to understand the difference between being a journalist, in order for any one to become a journalist you need research you have to research the pro and cons of every one idea or opinion. Did they diss Biggie hell no it’s the truth coming from a mind of the journalist on the other hand. Even krs one stated to be a rapper you need to talk about every thing politics crime party whatever. Fuck all that black male and black female problems in our society.We can not look up to rappers to justify our actions or even speak about what we are going through in a crime ridden environment. The problem is we give to much respect to these people. I don’t ever hear any one talking about mlk Or malcolm x or even kwame ture in the light that we all speak about Biggie and Pac.
I am a rapper I’m not dissin biggie I just don’t feel that no rapper can receive being the greatest because they all have brought something different to the table. Big A story teller, Oac a poet, Nas more conscious with a mix of street, Jay z is street.
j royal on Tue, 16th Mar 2010 7:00 pm
fuck it, im not even talkin bout whether he was the GOAT or not. he might not be, yes thats obviously a matter of opinion. All i’m saying is judging by the article, it’s quite obvious that the company man has never really listened to the catalogs of Jay or Biggie in their entirety–he reduces complex artists to one-dimensional caricatures. Nile is rite, to be a journalist u have to do ur research. this article is poorly researched, and displays a limited knowledge of two of the most influential/important rappers of all time. step ur game up. step ur knowledge up.