I remember coming home from school one day and stopping by my neighbor and close friend’s house hearing something super sick. It was Biggie. I mean I had heard him on a few Mary J songs and eventually his own track, Juicy. But I wasn’t prepared for the Eargasm that was Ready to Die. I think my fav song was probably The What due to my infatuation with Method Man. However the song Everyday Struggle was the song that I felt in my heart the most. It pushed my own poetic writing to another level. It was songs like this that actually changed my writing. I knew back then I was born with stories to tell. Despite my love for those jams, the whole entire CD (I think I had the cassette though) was always played through. Literally I rarely ever skipped a song… like ever.
No wonder Bad Boy fever spread like wildfire. I think I had every other Bad Boy alum CD after that, except Lil Kim. My grandparents as well as mom were not feeling that cover. So I had to unfortunately bootleg it or have my music privileges revoked. But I did bang Jr Mafia when it came out.
What made me most drawn to Read To Die was how Biggie poetically portrayed life in the hood and drug life from the perspective of a dealer. But he did so in a way that didn’t glorify or romanticize it like a lot of other thug rappers did. It was raw and real because so many people that I knew personally knew what it was like not to have and what it meant to hustle for it. This was all at a time when the crack epidemic was still booming.
He did this especially through Suicidal Thoughts where he relayed his thoughts piercingly all the way to the end…
Then there’s that gunshot…
Straight chills
Unfortunately less than 3 years later, in the Spring of ’97 it would be gunshots that would take biggie away from us.
Until Next Time Kiddies,
Shalom
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