Latest / DISGRACELAND / The Notorious B.I.G. Pt. 1: Dealing Crack on the Corner, Spitting Beef and Creating One of the Greatest Hip-Hop Albums of All Time

Transcript

The Notorious B.I.G. Pt. 1: Dealing Crack on the Corner, Spitting Beef and Creating One of the Greatest Hip-Hop Albums of All Time · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The stories about the notorious B.I.G. are insane. He was
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: arrested almost too many times to count. He entered adulthood
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: as a crack dealer, and he left this world as
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: one of its most famous hip-hop stars. Murdered. mysteriously. The
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Notorious B.I.G. altered the course of hip-hop with the release
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: of his debut album Ready to Die, an album that
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: served as a soundtrack of sorts for the highly publicized
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: violent beef between himself and his one-time friend, fellow rapper
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Tupac Shakur. But the Notorious B.I.G. 's career wasn't all
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: about the beef. It was also, obviously, about the music
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: he made. Great music. That music you heard at the
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: top of the show, That wasn't great music. That was
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: a preset loop from my Mellotron called Cola Party Hop, MK1.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I played you that loop because I can't afford the
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: rights to I'll Make Love to You by Boyz II Men.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: And why would I play you that specific slice of
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: babyface-penned cheese could I afford it? Because that was the
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: number one song in America on September 13th, 1994. And
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: that was the day The Notorious B.I.G. released his debut album,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Ready to Die, marking the beginning of his very short, impactful,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: and notorious career. On this, part one of a special
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: two-part episode, dealing crack, spitting beef, easy flow, hard beats
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: in The Notorious B.I.G. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: America was, is, and always will be about opportunity. The
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: rub is that depending on one's station in life, opportunity
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: comes in different forms. For Freeway Rick Ross, an illiterate
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: high school dropout living in South Central Los Angeles in
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: the late 1970s, opportunity came in the form of rock cocaine.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: A born hustler, he couldn't believe the profit potential of
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: this familiar drug when cut into a new form. Cocaine
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: users couldn't believe how cheap it was, and Colombian wholesale
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: distributors couldn't believe the ingenuity and ambition of their American
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: street-supplying partners. America. Opportunity for all. For freeway Rick Ross,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: the cash gushed in. A Nicaraguan connection supplied freeway Rick
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: in bulk direct from the Medellin cartel in Colombia. Rick
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: took as much weight as they could provide, which in
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: the 80s was a lot. He was buying upwards of
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: 400 million kilos a week, turning a profit of $ 3
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: million a week. Serious weight turned into serious cash through
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: an ambitious national distribution network that Freeway Rick set up.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: It took advantage of this country's vast interconnectivity via Dwight D.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Eisenhower's interstate highway system. Once procured in Los Angeles by
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: way of Mexican drug smugglers from its Colombian origins, Freeway
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Rick Ross took his cocaine and modified it into its
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: highly addictive, smokable rock form, also known as crack cocaine.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Packaged it and shipped it out en masse to street-side
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: hustlers on corners all over urban American neighborhoods who chopped
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: it up, repackaged it, and peddled it to mostly vulnerable,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: addicted members of their own communities. The crack shipped out
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: of L.A. south on the 10 east to Arizona, then
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: north on 17 to Interstate 40. From there, the illicit
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: drug rode Highway 40 all the way east to Oklahoma City.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: And from OK City, the crack cut northwest on Interstate
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  Speaker 1: 44 to Jefferson City. And from the Jeff, it shot
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  Speaker 1: due north on 55 and then east on Interstate 90,
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  Speaker 1: straight toward North Central America's unconquered cocaine market there for
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: the taking. Ohio. So hungry was Ohio for Freeway Rick's
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: crack that the return for him was like tapping into
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: a well-stocked bank vault. And Ohio. was nothing compared to
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: what laid two states away in New York with its
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: city's five hungry borrowers. If Ohio was like a bank
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: vault for a drug dealer like Freeway Rick, then New
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: York was like the Federal Reserve. The cash flew back
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: west and the crack poured into Manhattan. From Interstate 80
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  Speaker 1: to 280 East to the Holland Tunnel, through Lower Manhattan
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  Speaker 1: via Canal Street, over the Manhattan Bridge onto Concord Street
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  Speaker 1: to the BQE East, off the expressway onto Washington Street,
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  Speaker 1: through Clinton Hill, left on Gates, right on St. James,
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  Speaker 1: dead ahead to Fulton Street, and straight into the pocket
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: of a young hustler on the corner with an imposing build,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: a lazy eye, and an unmistakable flow. Spitting rhymes on
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  Speaker 1: the corner with his boys between games of sidewalk Zillow,
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  Speaker 1: clocking every driver of every car rolling by with that
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  Speaker 1: lazy eye. Scoping for two things, customers for the rock
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: and his sock tucked in under his Timberlands. Always untied,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: always brand new, fresh, like everything else about his appearance.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: And cops looking to bust him in the grill with
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  Speaker 1: the butt of their 9mm Glocks, brace his wrists and
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  Speaker 1: haul him in and off to Rikers Island for seizing
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: what he believed to be the only opportunity available to him.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Capitalizing on Freeway Rick Ross' own opportunity by dealing his
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: crack cocaine. Boy, was Biggie Smalls wrong. The corner game
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  Speaker 1: was a lazy means to a corrupt end. Cash he
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: brought in brought him the Timbs and the Leather Duster,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: the Polo, and the other swag he needed to stay
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: quote-unquote fresh, a requirement for all Bedford-Stuyvesant teens of the era,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: the late 1980s, one necessary to keep relevant with the
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: ladies and on point with the fellas. Status, sure, but also,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: for a young man of modest upbringing, self-respect as well.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Biggie Smalls had nicked his name from the movie Let's
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Do It Again after the film's gang leader character. His mother, Violetta,
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  Speaker 1: had named him Christopher Wallace. She was a hardworking Jamaican
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: immigrant who'd earned her way from nothing to the cusp
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: of the middle class. And despite however he rationalized his
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: drug dealing, he did have options. And despite being a
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: smart student, he dropped out of Brooklyn's Westinghouse High, where
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: fellow rappers DMX and Jay-Z also attended, and hit the corner, where,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: just as he had in school, he excelled. He took
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: the game seriously. He wasn't going to end up in jail,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: and he sure as shit wasn't going into the straight
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: world with the dead-eyed bums he watched entering and exiting
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: the subways every day. He'd bounce out of bed early
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: for him at 9 a.m. and hit the check-cashing spot
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: by 9.15, just in time for the crack fiends to
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  Speaker 1: get their hands around their cashed Social Security checks and
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: eager to exchange it for Big's product. Late mornings and
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: early afternoons were slow, but by 4.30 the hustle would
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: hit home hard with the exiting subway commuters, most moving
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: down Fulton in their zombie-norm trances back to their bratty
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: kids and annoying wives, but some stopping, eager to buy
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: a jack or two and obliterate any and all real-world obligations.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: The suburban kids would come out at night too, in
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: from Jersey or upstate looking for their dirty city fixes,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: and Biggie would happily oblige. He didn't discriminate. was all business. Locals,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: bridge and tunnel, men, women, kids. He even had a
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: pregnant customer he kept supplied with crack on the regular.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Other dealers drew the line with selling to pregnant women.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: It was well known that the heavily addictive qualities of
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: crack transmitted to the unborn, giving rise to the well-publicized
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: crack babies of the 80s and 90s. Innocent, friendly fire
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: casualties of Ronald Reagan's drug war and freeway Rick Ross's trade.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: But Big didn't care. He later told a journalist... I
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: didn't get in this game to feel sympathy for nobody.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: I got in this game to eat because I can't
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: do nothing else. But of course, the world would soon
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: learn that Christopher Wallace could do something else. In fact,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: for Biggie Smalls, a.k.a. B.I.G., a.k.a. the Notorious B.I.G., when
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: it came to doing the job of making and recording rhymes,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: he could do it better than most. 1989, another summer,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: sound of the funky drummer. Chuck D wasn't fucking around.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: And by the time he and his group, Public Enemy,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: released Fight the Power, their devastating indictment of what they
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: saw as an American capitalist system of white oppression, a
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: track that screamed off the screen of Spike Lee's 1989 masterpiece,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Do the Right Thing, hip-hop had fully transitioned from a
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: once-dismissed novelty to full-on cultural force and the proof was
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: all over Biggie Smalls' teenage bedroom walls. And it wasn't
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: just public enemy posters. Slick Rick, KRS-One, the Jungle Brothers,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: LL Cool J, Eric B. and Rakim, and of course,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Brooklyn's finest, Big Daddy Kane, all enshrined Biggie's room. He
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: was growing up amidst the masters of the golden age
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: of hip-hop, and none were more influential in those early
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: days to him than Kane. Big Daddy Kane came up
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: in Flatbush, studied at the knees of Marley Marl's juice
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: crew from Queens, and put pen to paper for Biz Marquis.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Big Daddy Kane grew into a fierce neighborhood battle rapper,
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  Speaker 1: one of the deadliest to ever grab the mic. His
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: success was inevitable. With East Coast tours, videos on Yo!
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  Speaker 1: MTV raps, and singles blasting from neighborhood boomboxes, in Brooklyn
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  Speaker 1: at least, his legend was large, his shadow long. Biggie
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: loved the music, sure, but the possibility of making something
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  Speaker 1: for nothing through music, as Kane was doing, stuck to him.
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  Speaker 1: He would spit rhymes in the corner with his boys
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  Speaker 1: while hustling. He was better than they were, and that
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  Speaker 1: was obvious, but there was no time for real rap.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Dealing crack was a full-time job. Sometimes sleep was impossible.
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  Speaker 1: Biggie woke up on his mother's sofa and headed into
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  Speaker 1: his bedroom to get back to work, to finish cutting
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: and bagging his crack stash to take to the streets,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: but it was a problem. His stash was gone. The
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: dinner plate he used to cut and sort his drugs
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: on was where he left it, on his bed, but
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: the pile of crack he'd left on top of it
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: had disappeared. He looked everywhere. tore his room apart, and
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: when he came up empty, he looked to the eyes
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: on his wall for answers. Chuck D said nothing, just
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: stared down in silent judgment. The Jungle Brothers looked typically aloof,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: Eric B and Rakim nonplussed, and Kane satisfied that his
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: one-day competition was distracted and thus unable to come for
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: his crown. Then Biggie's heart sank, realizing what must have happened.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: His mom's. He dragged himself shamefully into the kitchen and
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: asked his mother if she'd been in his room, only
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: to clean up a bit, she replied. She then told
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: him that he shouldn't leave half-eaten plates of food lying
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: around as they attract cockroaches, and asked him to grab
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: the plate in his room, the one with the old, hardened, quote,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: mashed potato she'd emptied into the trash. Biggie's boys on
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: the corner laughed when he told them the story. The
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: image of him on all fours, combing through his trash barrel,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: picking crack out of it, was hysterical to them. But
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: the last wouldn't last. In 1990, at the age of 17,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: shortly after the Cracked Potatoes incident, Biggie Smalls was arrested
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: for possession of an unregistered loaded firearm. The judge went
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: easy on him and gave him only five years probation,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: but local cops were on to him from that point on,
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: constantly clocking him, searching him, coming by his mom's house
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: to warn her about what her son was up to,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: dealing crack. She didn't believe them. And she couldn't barely
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: believe her son at all when he came home shortly
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: after his arrest and told her he was going to
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: be a father. His girlfriend was pregnant. It was his.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: He was going to do what his dad hadn't done
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: and raise up his child. But with zero job prospects
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: for a 17-year-old high school dropout and too much pride
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: to beg or borrow, hustling crack looked to be the
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: only answer. Until a DJ named 50 Grand entered his world.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: 50 heard Biggie rhyming on corners and at house parties
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: and recognized his talent immediately. He told Biggie he had
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: the gear to make a tape, so they did. His confidence,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: his command, his rhymes, when the tape rolled, were all
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: way beyond what anyone expected for a first-timer to be
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: laying down in a makeshift neighborhood studio. When Biggie heard
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: himself coming out of the speakers, flowing over the breakbeat
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: from the emotion's blind alley, a well-known run of tape
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: that Big Daddy Kane had repurposed for his Ain't No
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Half-Stepman He was even surprised. He knew he had the skills,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: but to that point, it was all a dream. Hearing
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: himself in real life on tape, it was nothing short
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: of compelling. 50 Grand was blown away. His boys were
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: blown away. And more importantly, 50 Grand's neighbor, the well-connected
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: DJ Mr. C, was also blown away. C, fresh off
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: tour with Big Daddy Kane, upon hearing Biggie's tape, was
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: set to say that he was so impressed that he
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: couldn't breathe. C agreed that he would try to get
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Biggie a record deal. Biggie warned him not to fuck
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: it up. C heeded the big man's advice and got
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: down to business. First, they recorded a proper demo. Second,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: C sent the demo off straight away to an influential
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: editor of The Source magazine. The writer punched up a
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: piece for his unsigned hype column, a column so impactful
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: that it was known to literally make careers. Rappers Mobb
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Deep and DMX got signed off of write-ups and unsigned
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: And so too would Biggie Smalls. But the writer did
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Biggie one better and tipped off a young, scrappy A &
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: R kid from Harlem by the name of Sean Puffy Combs.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: Sean Puffy Combs was ambitious and wise beyond his years.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: His ear for talent was as keen as his eye
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: for identifying marketable qualities in artists. When Puffy heard Biggie Smalls,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: it was clear the kid had skills, but When he
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: saw Biggie Smalls, Puffy knew he had something truly special.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Biggie's look would have turned off most A & R
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: men at the time. He was big, 375 pounds at
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: his heaviest. But unlike the Fat Boys, Biggie Smalls wasn't comical,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: and unlike Heavy D, Biggie Smalls didn't have his edges
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: softened by R & B. Biggie Smalls was 6'2, and
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: intimidating to look at. He looked exactly like what he was.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: A street corner, drug-dealing thug, slinging crack rock as a
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: means to survive, even if it cost someone else's life.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: His image was menacing. Sean Combs sniffed out the potential immediately.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: Biggie Smalls could have a unique kind of appeal. Biggie
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: Smalls could be notorious. But even with Sean Combs' interest,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: a deal was hard to paper. Puffy was working on
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: his own future, Machiavelli-ing his way out from under his mentor,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Andre Harrell, at Uptown Records and into his own joint
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: venture label with Arista Records. He had the perfect name
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: for it, Bad Boy Entertainment, and the perfect artist to
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: lead the way, Biggie Smalls, newly christened the Notorious B.I.G. Still,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: despite Combs' earnest interest in launching his career, Biggie Smalls
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: waited for his record deal, and with a new baby
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: on the He waited impatiently for the much-needed money his
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: deal would come with. Money needed to take some of
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: the pressure off. He waited and waited some more and
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: then some more until finally deciding that the deal was
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: a bust and in the absence of a music career,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: he'd need to go back to the only other thing
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: he was good at, dealing crack. So that's what he did.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: When it came to crack for Biggie Smalls, the weight
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: was in New York City, but the cash... was now
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: in North Carolina. In Brooklyn, crack was everywhere. Buyers could
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: afford to shop around. If they didn't like what Biggie
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: was peddling, they could move on down the block to
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: the next dealer for a better price. Making money, real money,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: money that could feed a family, was becoming harder for
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Biggie in New York. But in North Carolina, he had
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: a connect. A connect to a seller's market. There was
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: less crack down south, but there was hardly any less demand.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: In fact, Biggie could post up in Raleigh and buyers
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: would drive into town en masse looking to purchase in
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: bulk to take care of their street corner dealers who
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: in turn took care of their local feeds. The money
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: poured in. Biggie and his connect were pocketing about $ 30, 000
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: every two weeks. Not bad for a high school dropout.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: North Carolina was anything but a lonely existence. Around town
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: as a hustling export. He was a bit of a
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: local celebrity in the clubs. He was enjoying himself, having fun,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: stacking cash, and had no intention of rushing back to
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: New York anytime soon. But his phone wouldn't stop ringing,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: and his pager wouldn't stop buzzing. His mom, his girl, Puffy,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: no doubt with more bullshit about an impending deal that
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: never seemed to come. And Biggie tried ignoring the distractions
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: of home and to instead focus on the hustle, focus
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: on the fun, but sooner or later the messages got through,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: and they were all the same. Christopher, where the fuck
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: are you? Puffy won't stop calling looking for you. Hit
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: him back and call me back, motherfucker. I'm about to
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: have your goddamn baby, and I needs money, and, and, and... Eventually,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Biggie Smalls did indeed call Sean Puffy Combs back from
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: his and his drug-dealing partner's rented apartment house in Raleigh,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: North Carolina. Puff knew what Biggie was doing down there
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: and told him he was a damn fool and he
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: had a contract and a check waiting for him on
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: his desk, and that if he went and got himself
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: busted for dealing weight, which with every day he pressed
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: his luck became more and more of a likelihood, then
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: there would be no rap career from behind bars. Biggie protested.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: He was making good money. What did he need to
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: fuck with the music industry for? Puffy assured him this
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be no one-and-done flash-in-the-pan nonsense. He had a plan,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: a plan to make him a star. That this wasn't
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: just about Biggie Smalls. It was about the launch of
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Bad Boy Entertainment as well. It was about Sean Puffy
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Combs climbing out from the shadow of his mentor and
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: making it on his own. So he best get the
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: fuck out of Dodge with the quickness and get himself
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: back to Manhattan to sign his deal and cash his check.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: So that's what Biggie Smalls did. He split North Carolina
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: for New York City that very same morning after getting
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: off the phone with Puffy and headed north to try
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: and make his way as a rapper. Just like Kane,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: a life in hip-hop without the cocaine. A different kind
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: of hustle. That afternoon, after he left the house he
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: rented in Raleigh with his North Carolina connect, the house
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: was raided by the cops. Everyone in it was promptly
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: arrested on stiff drug distribution charges and eventually sentenced to
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: long prison terms. But not Biggie Smalls. He was off, out,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: about to be on some other trip entirely. How about dope? Grass, hash, coke, mescaline, downers, nebunol, tunol, chlorohydrates.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: How about uppers, amphetamines? Biggie shook his head. He wasn't interested.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Crystal meth, I can get you crystal meth. Nitrous oxide,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: how about that? How about a Cadillac? I'll get you
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: a brand new Cadillac with a pink slip for 20 grand.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Biggie just stared at the bed in the cheap motel
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: where they were haggling. Easy Andy wouldn't shut up. The
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: easy part of his name must have been a joke
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: because he was anything but easy to deal with. Maybe
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: he got the name because he could get you whatever
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: you wanted easily. Biggie didn't know. All he knew was
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: that he wanted to talk about the guns, laid out
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: neatly in the suitcase on top of the bed. The.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: 44 Magnum in particular. Andy called it a real monster,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: and it was. It could stop a car at 100 yards,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: put around right through the engine block. It was beautiful, too,
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't practical. Unlike the. 38 Stugnose, another beauty, nickel-plated, compact,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: but powerful and reliable, Nice action, heck of a wallop.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Cops carried them for a reason, and Biggie wanted them both.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: As well as the Colt. 25 automatic, a real honey
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: and nice little gun, and the. 380. Eight shots in
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: the clip, sophisticated by comparison to the rest. Easy Andy
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: told him that in World War II, it was only
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: issued to officers. Classy. Biggie liked that. He knew Tupac
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Shakur would too. After all, the guns were for Tupac,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: Big's new brother from a wildly different mother. For an
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: extra five large, Easy Andy would see to it that
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: the guns made it safely to Tupac out on the
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: West Coast. A heavy freight charge, but for Big, it
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: was worth it. After securing the deal for the guns,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: Big hopped in the back of his chauffeured SUV. Dr.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: Dre's Let Me Ride blasted through the speakers. Man, this
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: shit never got old, Biggie thought. The album was a
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: big influence for the Notorious B.I.G. 's first album, Ready
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: to Die. Released as promised on Sean Puffy Combs' Bad
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Boy Entertainment on September 13, 1994, the album was a
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: hit out of the gate, selling half a million copies
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: in its first week, and though Dre didn't produce the album,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: his chronic had a lot to do with its success.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Big heard in the chronic a kindred style, a laid-back
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: sensibility that he could relate to. Because it wasn't just laid-back,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: it was real. The hardcore realism of West Coast rap
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: was something that had recently fallen out of fashion on
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: the East Coast, where conscious rap with its positive messages
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: and beta-boy academic vibes reigned supreme. East Coast hip-hop in
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: the early 90s was more huxtable than hardcore, and that
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: didn't speak to Big. Sure, Tribe Called Quest and De
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: La Soul were on to something, but it didn't do
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: for Biggie what The Chronic did. So when it came
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: time to write and record his debut, Big enlisted some
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: of the East Coast's deadliest production weapons. Easy Moby and
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: DJ Premier to craft beats into a unique style befitting
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: the big man. Like Dre, Big would mix the hard
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: with the smooth. Hard, as in the hardcore New York
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: City street reality where Big made his living dealing drugs. Smooth,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: as in the easy R & B sensibilities that sophisticated
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: East Coast listeners caught into. Whereas Dre turned to George
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Clinton and Zap, Big turned to Isaac Hayes and Teddy Pendergrass.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: And just as Snoop went laid back with that unique
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: flow of his, Big was able to do the same
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: with his flow. But like Snoop, Big's voice and Big's
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: flow were entirely his own. Filtered through his authentic street
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: point of view and personality, it was very clear that
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: the Notorious B.I.G. was on to something entirely unique for
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: the time. And just as Dre had done with The Chronic,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Big had now done with Ready to Die. Created another
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: inflection point for the artist's relatively young musical genre. With
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: one fully realized artistic statement, with one album, his debut album,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: the Notorious B.I.G. ushered in a new phase of hip-hop.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: When the Notorious B.I.G. released his debut album, Ready to Die,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: on Sean Puffy Combs' Bad Boy Entertainment, The results of
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Biggie's creative vision, a melding of sorts between East and
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: West Coast sensibilities, were undeniable. Kids loved it. Critics loved it.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Fellow rappers loved it. Tupac Shakur included. Ever since first
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: hearing the notorious B.I.G. in 1993, Tupac was enamored of him,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: both as a person and as a fellow rapper. And
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: of course, Big was in a kind of awe of Tupac,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: who at the time was a little further along in
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: the rap game. The two men, despite their many obvious differences,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: became fast friends, both fulfilling something different in the other.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Tupac grew up poor, the son of a Black Panther,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: a radical activist, an addict. He'd learned his trade from
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: real-life revolutionaries. It was as hardcore and real a background
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: as a rapper could have, and Christopher Biggie Smalls Wallace
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: envied Tupac Amaru Shakur for it. Biggie grew up with
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: a single mom, sure, in the middle of a dangerous city.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: But in comparison to the way Tupac grew up, B.I.G.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: was bourgeois, practically middle class. And that said, Tupac, as
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: a child growing up, was bookish and a serious student
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: of the arts. He attended the prestigious Baltimore School for
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Performing Arts. And though his neighbors on the hard streets
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: of Baltimore no doubt lived lives of violence and crime,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: and though his mother's friends were some of the country's
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: most revolutionary activists, Tupac was relatively soft by comparison. And
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: in biggie, He saw a real street thug, someone who
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: had the balls to take what was his by any
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: means necessary through his chosen trade of drug dealing. They
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: loved hanging out with each other. When one was on
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: the other's coast, they took care of each other. Big
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: hosted Pac, Pac did the same for Big, and when
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Tupac's big mouth started getting him in trouble and his
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: fame started to freak him out and he began complaining
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: about having to look around too many corners for fear
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: of getting jacked, Big did what friends do and looked
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: out for his boys. He shipped him the fresh arsenal
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: he'd procured in a dingy East Coast motel, hand-picked just
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: for his paranoid friend out West. But either the guns
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: came too late or Tupac forgot or didn't bother to
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: make sure they made their way back with him East
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: for his next trip to New York. Or perhaps he
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: just didn't bother to carry one with him that night
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: to Quad Studios to feature on the Bad Boy Records
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: artist Little Sean's session that was going on a floor
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: below where Big and Puffy were also recording. working on
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Biggie's warning video. Tupac had a lot on his mind.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: The trial for sexual assault that he was up against
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: was wearing on him and draining his bank account, which
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: is the real reason he was doing the session that evening.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: He needed the cash, but the session would never happen.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: The shots came as soon as he entered the hallway
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: at Quad Studios. Five of them, and the pair of
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: 9mms carried by the Roughnecks shaking him down. They wanted
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: his money and his jewels. One in the hand. Two
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: in the head. One in the thigh. Exit. Through the skirt.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: The shooters split after running Tupac's jewels and his cash.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: He crawled into the hallway elevator, got a bloody finger
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: on the button, and was lifted to the second floor studio.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: When all was said and done, Tupac came out of
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: the melee having survived with five gunshot wounds. With Tupac
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: in the hospital nursing his wounds and then in and
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: out of court in extreme pain, Big ran all over
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: town trying to buy as much weed as he could
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: for his friend to help him recuperate. He had Pac's
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: best interests and well-being front of mind after the shooting.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: But Tupac had a different point of view. From where
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: he sat, after the trial, in prison, Sentenced to one
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: and a half to four years for first-degree sexual abuse,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: he started to see his friend in a much different
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: light than his friends saw him. To Tupac, Biggie and
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Puff's reaction in the immediate aftermath of the quad shooting
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: was highly suspicious. Puck recounted to a journalist in a
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: jailhouse interview that when Biggie and Puff saw Tupac bleeding
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: out on the floor with fresh gunshot wounds, they didn't
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: move to help him. In fact, they looked surprised to
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: see him. Tupac was insinuated that Big and Puff, his friends,
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: were surprised because they knew he was going to be shot.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: So they were thus surprised to see him alive. Nine
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: months into his sentence, Tupac was sprung from prison by Dr.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Dre's notorious Blood Street Gang-affiliated Death Row Records label boss,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Suge Knight, and thus now firmly under the wing, protection,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: and career in financial control of Suge. With that muscle
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: at his back, Tupac became more outspoken than ever. Except now,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: instead of preaching the raw truth of life in the
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: ghetto for young black men, Tupac was spreading his gospel
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: of the Quad studio shooting. Specifically, his belief that Big
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: and Puff had set him up. When this happened, the
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: media smelled blood. With the newfound rivalry between Tupac Shakur
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: and his former friend, the notorious B.I.G., between Suge's new
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: record label, Death Row Records, and label boss Suge Knight,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: and Biggie's label, Bad Boy Entertainment, and its boss, Sean
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Puffy Combs, and between the coast, west versus east, the
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: beef was undeniably compelling. It sold newspapers, it sold magazines,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: and most important, it sold records. The music press often
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: chronicles the rivalry between Shakur's West Coast Death Row Records
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: and Biggie Smalls' Bad Boy Entertainment with Sean Puckett Holmes.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Shakur has been at the center of a battle between
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: East and West Coast rappers. It has been a battle
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: mostly of words and music. But as recently as Wednesday night,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Shakur was in Newport at the MTV Music Awards. He
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: and his friends got into a confrontation at Radio City
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Music Hall, which the police had to break up. And
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: talk again tonight about reports that Shakur's death is a
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: result of an ongoing East versus West rap dispute. Tupac
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Shakur was riding in this black BMW when the gunfire erupted.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: After Mike Tyson knocked out Bruce Seldon in under a
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: minute twenty, Tupac sat in the passenger seat of Suge's
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: BMW at the corner of East Flamingo Road and Cova Lane.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: And Suge was at the wheel. From out of nowhere,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: a late model Cadillac rolled up along the passenger side
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: of the BMW. Then, countless bullets fired. One in Tupac's arm.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: One in Tupac's thigh. Two in his chest. The one
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: in his right lung. The kill shot. The Killshot The
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: notorious B.I.G. cried when he heard the news that his
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: friend Tupac Shakur had been shot and killed. First, he
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: couldn't believe the way Tupac was behaving toward him. Now
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: he couldn't believe that Tupac was gone, murdered, with the
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: killer still on the loose, and with a new record
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: to finish writing and recording, a follow-up to Ready to Die,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: There was no time for tears, never mind actually processing
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: his grief in any real way. Tupac's death had Christopher
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Wallace in shock. It was never supposed to come to this.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: How did everything, it seemed, become so complicated? Hip-hop stardom
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: was supposed to alleviate the pressures of life, not add
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: to them. But that was exactly what had happened. Biggie
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: no longer knew what his purpose was. To be famous?
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: For what and how? On some beef that kills your
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: friendship and gets someone you admire killed? To be a father?
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: A husband? He and his baby mama had split before
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: his child was even born, but he still wanted to
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: provide his baby with everything. Except he had other commitments now.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: To his wife, Faith Evans. To his fans. He was
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: pulled in so many directions at once, and committing himself
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: in earnest to family life at the rambunctious age of
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: 24 just wasn't happening. He was too young to fully
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: commit or to settle down in any real way. It
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: to be an artist? Maybe. But life was so complicated
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: that it was near impossible to find the brain space
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: to fully invest in the new album he was making.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Biggie's complications didn't all of a sudden die with Tupac.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Big had recently been arrested, again, this time for marijuana possession.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: His car was impounded and at the moment he was
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: desperately needed at the studio. He and his boy Lil
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Cease rented a shitbox Chevy Lumina to get them to
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: where they needed to be in time for the session.
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: The car rental place was dubious, and the Lumina was
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: a legit honk, but it was all that was available
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: to rent, and Big was determined to get to the studio,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: get into the work, get his mind off of things.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: They drove through the rain on the highway in silence.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Despite his recent arrest and the complicated mess his life
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: had become with fame, despite the beef that still raged
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: between the coasts despite Tupac's passing, in this moment at least,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: with the sound of the wet highway passing them by,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: The silence in the car, the radio off, no yammering
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: from Cease, rain pelting the car at a safe 55
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: miles per hour, the hypnotic swipes of the windshield wipers.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: It all added up to a kind of momentary peace
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: for Biggie Smalls. And then Cease went to make his
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: exit off the highway. He put his foot to the
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: brake pedal, only to realize that there were no brakes
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: in this piece of shit Chevy. They'd completely gone useless.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: The car refused to slow on the off-ramp. and they
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: glided over the wet road at a furious clip. Cease
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: turned to Big for an answer, and then... I'm Jake Brennan,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: and this episode of Disgraceland is to be continued. Disgraceland
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: slash membership. Members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad-free. Plus,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month. Weekly
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: merchandise and events. Visit DisgracelandPod.com slash membership for details. Rate
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter,
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: and Facebook at DisgracelandPod. And on YouTube at YouTube.com slash
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: at DisgracelandPod. Rock and roll up. He's a bad, bad man.