Is the Notorious B.I.G.’s Run Too Short for G.O.A.T. Conversations?: Head to Head with Edd

Welcome back to Head to Head with Edd, where yours truly goes toe-to-toe with the superfans of the game’s biggest artists. We’ll take a look at the selected artist’s biggest hits and misses and see where we can find common ground.

I can’t believe we’ve done more than 30 editions of Head to Head, yet this is the first time we get to chat about one of MY personal faves. So today, I get to be the stan in the room! I’m joined by my boy Derrick Dunn of Reviews & Dunn to discuss Frank White himself, The Notorious BIG. Strap in as we debate one of the greatest careers in rap history.

Let’s start off the debate hot: Ready to Die or Life after Death – which is BIG’s best album and why? 

Derrick: Life After Death

Now this is a tough question because I love both for different reasons and if you look at iTunes songs from both albums have equal numbers of plays. Off the strength of “The World is Filled” with that killer Carl Thomas hook, I have to go with Life after Death. As you always say though, ask me tomorrow and my answer could change.

Edd: Life After Death

We’re starting out with the tough questions, I see. Ready to Die and Life After Death are two completely different albums  – which makes sense because they’re two different points in Christopher Wallace’s life. Conceptually, Ready to Die easily wins. But as an overall body of work, I have to give the slight edge to Life After Death. BIG stanning aside, Ready to Die slightly sags during its second half but Life After Death rarely loses its momentum across 25 tracks. That’s a near miracle. It’s also one of the very, very few double albums that I consider to be a 5-star affair. Both are incredible but Life After Death is unbeatable.

What’s Biggie’s best single?

Derrick: “Big Poppa”

This question is easy peasy. Without a doubt, “Big Poppa” and that Isley Brothers  sample. 

Edd: “One More Chance Remix”

I know y’all are gonna scream, “WAIT, AIN’T THAT YOUR FAVORITE SONG, YOU’RE BEING BIASED!” But look at everything that makes Biggie’s singles great – the swagger of “Big Poppa,” the masterful sampling of “Juicy,” the quotables of “Warning” all while being safe enough to play at the cookout with grandma without losing a shred of its street cred. It’s all we love about Frank White in one incredible track.

While on the topic of singles, which album cut should have been a single?

Derrick: “I Love the Dough”

We all know that Big and Jay were friends growing up so I would have loved to see these two in a video together celebrating their success.

Edd: “I Love the Dough”

There’s lot of candidates here, with “What’s Beef” and that song featuring the Pissy Prisoner being high among them. But I agree with Mr. Dunn, “I Love the Dough” seemed ready-made for a video and radio play. With Jay Z on the rise at the time it most certainly would have been a hit.

We heard lots of music after Biggie’s death, a lot of which … wasn’t very good. What’s his best posthumously released song?

Derrick: “Notorious B.I.G.”

While the lyrics from Kim and Puff aren’t that groundbreaking and don’t connect to Big’s lyrics, I have fond memories of teaching my son the hook. I also love the video and the way Big is honored.

Edd: “Dead Wrong”

Yes, I know it originally was an old freestyle but Dead Wrong is the only answer here, as it’s one of the very few posthumous releases that actually FEELS like a real Big song, not some Frankenstein-like disaster with the Cash Money rappers stapled to the beat. Also shout out to Swizz Beatz for “Spit Your Game” – it’s essentially just a “Notorious Thugs” remix but he worked magic with that one.

BIG has several memorable videos. Which is the best?

Derrick: “One More Chance Remix”

No question, “One More Chance.”  The use of the DeBarge sample and the cuts of so many female singers on the hook is still dope. Not to mention cameos from Aaliyah, Heavy D and Craig Mack who are all no longer with us. The 90s was a great time to be alive.

Edd: “Juicy”

This is another tough one but I lean toward “Juicy” here. Y’all know I love “One More Chance” – I credit it with being the song that made me a BIG stan for life. But the visual storytelling of “Juicy” is so hard to beat. Seeing the turmoil of Biggie’s youth, as well as the elation when he finally makes good, takes the track to another level.

What’s your pick for best Biggie feature?

Derrick: “Real Love” Remix

This is another tough one. Three of my favorite Big verses are guest features. So I had to go back to my DJ days. Usually I would get a better response and more folks rapping his Hot 16 from the “Real Love” remix than my other two (Da Brat’s “The B Side” and  Total’s “Can’t You See.”)

Edd: “Victory”

These questions are IMPOSSIBLE. I could name a dozen tracks here – “Flava In Ya Ear” remix, “Can’t you See,” “All About the Benjamins,” “Keep Your Hands High,” etc, etc, etc. But I’ll go with my first instinct and say “Victory.” It’s incredible – and heartbreaking – that Big’s last recorded verses are among his best. He had so much more to give us.

Did the 2009 biopic Notorious do Biggie’s story justice?

Derrick: You know that I’m big on biopics. I still remember when they first announced the Biggie biopic and I had a chance to read the first draft of the script, which is vastly different than the final product. Personally I thought that the writers and director George Tillman Jr. got it right. The performances were strong from Derek Luke’s random dancing to Anthony Mackie tapping into Tupac’s bipolar personality.  Not to mention Jamal Woolard’s breakthrough performance as Big.  I revisit Notorious every other year or so.

Edd: Gotta agree again with the homie. I’ve seen Notorious take a beating from critics in recent years and it’s certainly not flawless (the benevolent and pristine portrayal of Puff Daddy always raised my eyebrows, for instance) but I think it does a solid job of telling the layered story of Christopher Wallace. Most musical biopics are hit and miss for me, but I consider this one a job well done.

Legend has it that Big had so much fun recording the song “Playa Hater” that he planned for his third album to be titled Biggie’s Big Ballads. The concept was going to be an album full of songs similar to “Playa Hater.” Who is one guest you would have liked to see on the album?

Derrick: To everyone’s surprise I’m sure my answer to this question isn’t New Edition. I would’ve loved to see Daron Jones from 112 could’ve cooked up for Big and Gerald LeVert on the same track.

Edd: If you didn’t know, Big LOVED R&B. While his BIG Ballads idea was clearly ahead of its time, I’m not very confident it would have gotten off the ground in the late 90s. Tongue-in-cheek tracks like “Playa Hater” aside, this was well over a decade before y’all accepted rappers singing atrociously as a good thing. I think Big’s best bet would be to drag in some of the soul pioneers that defined his youth – the Delfonics, Stylistics, etc. Think all of those 90s Bad Boy samples, but with actual in-studio input from the pioneers this time. Having him do his awful crooning with actual legends backing him up might actually work.

Initially Big’s posthumous album Born Again was due to arrive in the fall of 1997. The rumored first single was going to be “Party and Bulls*** 97″ featuring Will Smith. What do you think the public’s response would have been?

Derrick: Will Smith was on top of the world in 1997 following Men in Black. Let’s not forget that his debut solo album Big Willie Style went nine-times platinum in the U.S. alone. From a marketing standpoint and the way Bad Boy was dominating the radio, I do think commercially the song would’ve been big for the mainstream. However hip-hop purists may have had issues with the track.

Edd: As I mentioned above with Big’s bad singing, the 90s were much more strict time, and hardcore icons fraternizing with pop acts wasn’t always a good move. Now don’t misunderstand me, Will is a MUCH better MC than he gets credit for and deserves more props than he currently receives. The man is way more than “Summertime” and the Fresh Prince theme. That said, my brain cannot compute Will Smith and Biggie on a track together. I’m sure if that collab happened it would have done well (Bad Boy was still at its height, Will was the biggest pop rapper on the scene, and as Jadakiss reminded us, “dead rappers get better promotion” ) but I guarantee purists would have pushed back, calling it a label-forced collabo. Heck, I probably would have been one of those purists.

If BIG was still with us in 2021, how do you see him fitting into today’s music scene?

Derrick: Honestly I don’t think Big would be rapping anymore. I feel like he would be involved in business of some sort or running a label. From time to time he would make an appearance to let folks know he still had it.

Edd: It’s funny when I see the young’ns on Twitter talk about how the legends of yesterday wouldn’t be able to survive in today’s climate, like it takes an ivy-league master’s degree to rap over a lazy trap beat. As Nas and other heavy hitters have proven, skills are eternal. A great rapper can kill any track from any era. That said, talent aside, would Big be RELEVANT today? That’s the real question, and I’m not so confident about that in today’s fickle marketplace. Even back in 97 he already had his eye on other business ventures so by 2021 I expect him to be semi-retired, handling business in the background. I see him in the current Jay Z role of elder statesmen who pops up occasionally on tracks to reaffirm his legacy.

Is it fair to call the Notorious B.I.G. the greatest of all time or does his relatively short career disqualify him?

Derrick: I may get some flak from this but I say you can’t and it’s due to the short run.  Now that’s not to say that he isn’t in my top five because he is. But with only two albums and a third of outtakes, I give the slight edge to a few who have a bigger body of work.

Edd: I never bought the “he can’t be the GOAT because he only had two real albums” excuse. If we lost Whitney Houston in 1990 instead of 2012 would we not be allowed to call her one of the greatest vocalists in history because she only had a five year career? That’s dumb – whether she was around 5 years of 500 years, NOBODY’s out-singing her. THAT’s what makes her legendary, not having 37 albums on Spotify. Greatness isn’t just about arbitrary dates or number of 5-star albums or who has the most streaming numbers or other random stats you can pull up on Wikipedia. It’s the intangibility of impact that makes all the difference. Biggie has been gone nearly 25 years and his songs are still being sampled, his bars still being quoted, his storytelling is still being co-opted and his rhyme schemes are still being studied. Big’s legacy didn’t end in 1997 – you have to look beyond the four or five years he was in the booth and at how he continues to influence the craft in the 20-something years after he left us. That, dear children, is what legends are made of. Few can boast that kind of legacy.

Simply put, BIG is the GOAT until y’all find someone who can outrap him. Good luck with that.

Who did Big Poppa the most justice, Derrick or Edd? Let us know in the comments below.