Neither of these assumptions is necessarily accurate or fair to the Notorious B.I.G.īut maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves. Second of all, the question assumes that Biggie is promoting a certain lifestyle as more or less positive than another-another assumption a lot of people make about rap artists.

There is not some sort of abstract requirement that rappers be telling a 'true story,' even if parts of the song reflect their real life experience. Like so many other rappers, he has often been put in the position of representing some sort of authentic position in the community-not just by the mainstream media, but by the hip-hop world itself, which has often been quick to criticize posers who tell stories about lives they haven't lived. So, which lifestyle is Biggie really praising here? Street-wise authenticity and his smarts as a former drug dealer? Or a rags-to-riches story and the glory of relative wealth? Before we try to answer that, it's worth noting that we are really oversimplifying the question for dramatic effect (everybody does that on the internet, but a little self-critique never hurts).įirst of all, this sort of question assumes that the Notorious B.I.G. Even though his career is blowing up, his pride lies in the 'same number same hood.' But the more his career blows up, the further he really lives from that hood life-a transition he describes as going 'from negative to positive.' He's probably talking about his bank account in that line (so says Genius), but he's also suggesting that his new life is the positive one. Notorious B.I.G.) ends up mostly telling stories about his ties to poverty and the street. In this case, the specific contradiction we're talking about is the central theme of the Notorious B.I.G.'s 1994 single, 'Juicy.' In a song shaped around bragging about a new life of riches and wealth, Christopher Wallace (a.k.a. It's actually pretty much impossible to separate any discussion about popular music from questions of profit on the one hand, and questions of authenticity on the other. It has to do with money, and it has to do with realness.Īh, but what doesn't have to do with money and realness, you might be asking? Can you guess what the contradiction is? Here's a clue: It's a contradiction that almost no popular rapper gets away from, a contradiction that is just about as old as the craft of rap, and certainly as old as the mainstream popularity of rap.

Notorious B.I.G., like most big stars, is guilty of contradicting himself.

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