0:03

Hello One Song Nation, D'Alla Riddle

0:05

here. Luxury and I are hard

0:07

at work making new episodes of the show. We've

0:10

got a lot of new stuff coming

0:12

up in about two weeks that we

0:14

are really excited about including a very

0:16

special Valentine's Day episode for you romantics

0:19

out there. So while Luxury

0:21

and I are hard at work isolating

0:23

stims, researching obscure old drum machines, and

0:25

thinking about why the songs we share

0:28

really matter, I wanted to

0:30

share an early episode that some of

0:32

you newer listeners may have missed.

0:35

It's a song that means a lot to me, and

0:37

it meant a lot to hip hop. It's one of

0:39

the last singles to feature one of the greatest rappers

0:41

of all time, to many THE

0:43

greatest rapper of all time, and

0:46

importantly, it ushered out one kind of hip

0:48

hop sound and ushered in a whole

0:50

new era. Before

0:52

I play you the episode, a quick note.

0:55

We recorded this episode before the

0:57

allegations against Sean Diddy Combs were

0:59

made public. So now,

1:01

from the One Song Archive,

1:04

it's Mo Money, Mo Problems.

1:15

I'm director, actor, writer, and sometimes DJ

1:17

D'Alla Riddle. And I'm producer, DJ, and

1:19

songwriter, Luxury. So this is One Song,

1:22

the show where we deconstruct and celebrate

1:24

some of your favorite songs from the

1:26

past 60 years in music history, and

1:28

tell you why it deserves one more

1:31

listen. That's right. Yo,

1:33

Luxury, what's up with

1:35

you? Man, it's

1:38

been quite the week. It's

1:41

been a big week. I'm exhausted. I'm

1:43

tired. Why was it a big week?

1:45

As EPMD would say, if you're tired, go and take a

1:47

nap. Do we have time for a nap? I don't have

1:49

time for a nap. You know what? I'm tired of this,

1:51

that when he said it. But now that we're a little

1:53

older, like, it's like, go take a nap. Why, yes, I

1:55

will, Eric Surman. It's a kind suggestion now. Like, thank you.

1:58

I don't mind if I do. I am tired. Was it the

2:00

other fact? We're

2:02

too... Even he was looking out for us. But I am

2:04

not too tired to have an hour long chat with my

2:06

buddy Diallo about music. I'm kind of pumped. I gotta be

2:08

honest with you. Oh, okay. Well, should

2:11

we get this thing started? Let's do it.

2:13

If you didn't know, this August is the

2:16

50th anniversary of the birth of hip-hop. We'll

2:18

be covering a lot of hip-hop songs, but

2:20

I'm excited to say that today's song comes

2:22

at literally the halfway point in hip-hop's history.

2:25

So if you consider 1973 the beginning... Right.

2:29

...is now firmly planted in 1997. Okay,

2:32

it's not granted. It's not 1998.

2:34

But 1997, about as clear as the

2:37

halfway mark as we can get. And

2:39

it marks a shift in

2:42

how mainstream hip-hop is gonna

2:44

become. And the

2:46

irony is that the main artist on this song

2:48

never got a chance to see it. Oh my

2:50

God, such a build-up, the suspense. What

2:53

is the song? We all wanna know. Well, get

2:56

ready because today we're talking

2:58

about the notorious B.I.G., Puff

3:01

Daddy, and Mace on their

3:03

hit song, Mo Money Mo Problem. By

3:06

the way, I had a quick question for

3:08

you. It

3:15

is the 50th anniversary technically of Cool Her throwing

3:17

that party at the rec room at 120 SEDU.

3:20

In the Bronx. In the Bronx. Yeah.

3:23

Do you agree that that should be the

3:25

beginning of hip-hop? You know, without stepping into

3:27

the minefield of what is hip-hop, I think

3:29

that... Step into it. No, because

3:31

that's a whole nother episode. That's a whole nother

3:33

episode. And I really wanna spend some time talking about B.I.G. and

3:35

Puff. I do think that you've

3:38

got the four avenues of

3:40

hip-hop present in some form at

3:42

that party according to the people who were

3:44

there. You've got

3:47

teenagers breakdancing, emceeing,

3:49

on the turntables. There

3:51

may have been some... And graffiti. Yeah,

3:53

exactly. Like, you know, to... You know,

3:56

again, there are endless

3:58

books written about... this but I

4:01

think that to have those four avenues come

4:03

together you know in a public

4:05

setting and to have those kids

4:07

realize that they have sort of stumbled

4:09

on something a new a new recipe yeah

4:11

if you will yeah you know I honor

4:14

it I mean like it's hard to put your

4:16

finger on it and to also think about how

4:19

far we've come right right like

4:21

you know nowadays you can definitely go

4:23

to the hip-hop show and there's no

4:25

graffiti in sight I mean there's very

4:27

little graffiti and the b-boying is yeah

4:29

you know things

4:31

are gonna change in 50 years and I actually

4:33

think that's the most beautiful thing about hip-hop right

4:36

is that anytime somebody you know

4:38

tries to over intellectualize it or come along

4:40

and constrain it yeah in the way that

4:42

like you know rock journalism has

4:44

sort of constrained rock music right I feel like

4:46

hip-hop's like no that's not even the that's not

4:49

even the rubric we're using anymore you know what

4:51

I was gonna say that seems interesting to just

4:53

sort of dawn on me is like it we're

4:55

talking about a live moment and

4:57

like that as the crux of the birth

4:59

of a genre makes so much sense because

5:01

hip-hop happened in a room with people experiencing

5:03

it experiencing there was a DJ on the

5:05

turntables yeah we're MCs there were b-boys it

5:07

was all happening in a live setting and

5:09

we now kind of think of it as

5:11

a genre that we choose to listen to

5:13

and maybe we go to a show but

5:15

the birth of hip-hop is the birth happens

5:17

in a live setting which I think is

5:19

really interesting you weren't any recordings yet there

5:21

were no hip-hop records out yet right and

5:23

I think nowadays if there are new genres

5:26

being invented I think they're happening they're not

5:28

happening in live setting yeah you don't need

5:30

a five thousand dollar studio or a performance

5:32

at Carnegie Hall it's usually people on their

5:34

lap piecing together music in their in their

5:36

bedrooms totally interesting but hip-hop's 50 hip-hop can

5:38

you know definitely get into a movie for

5:40

a little bit cheaper yeah if it goes

5:42

to a movie but if hip-hop's 50 it

5:44

probably does prefer going to theaters midlife

5:46

prices but when it was you

5:49

know mid-20s this song

5:51

came out and this song means

5:54

so much to hip-hop I feel

5:57

we didn't know it necessarily at the time and

5:59

some of the This is looking back, but I just

6:01

think that this is one of the seminal hip-hop

6:04

tracks. You can sort of see where hip-hop goes

6:06

off in a different direction, not just for Moment

6:08

of More Promise, but Life After Death in general.

6:11

That album. Such a major moment

6:13

in hip-hop history that I thought we spent some

6:15

time talking about. I'm excited. I

6:17

can't wait to frankly get educated from your ability. That's

6:19

why I'm going to break down the essentials. This

6:22

song was released after

6:24

Biggie died. I put out after Tupac

6:26

died about nine months before him. In

6:29

1997, this was

6:31

on Biggie's second and final album, Life After

6:33

Death, as I said. We all

6:36

know that Biggie's real name was Christopher Wallace.

6:38

He was fatally shot in Los

6:41

Angeles after attending an after party.

6:44

Life After Death was literally released 16 days

6:47

after his murder. By the way, quick question for

6:49

you. The Biggie Smalls notorious B.I.G. thing. There's a

6:51

transition that happens, right? He starts out as Biggie.

6:53

He starts off as Biggie Smalls. Then there's a

6:56

lawsuit from a white Biggie. There's a white rapper

6:58

named Biggie Smalls. There's

7:00

a white guy named Biggie Smalls who threatened a lawsuit or

7:02

something. Then he made the conversion. Is that what I

7:05

said? I don't know if it was threatening. Nowadays, you

7:07

see things on social media that suggest that it goes

7:09

really deep in terms of

7:12

Biggie Smalls sticking out not just the name,

7:14

but the use of certain samples. I'm not

7:16

going to touch that either. I feel like

7:18

that's a different kind of Briar patch. But

7:21

obviously at some point, he needed to change his

7:23

name for legal reasons, and he became the notorious

7:25

B.I.G. Okay, so we're going to call him Big.

7:27

I'm just going to go by Big today. We

7:30

might call him everything. We can call him whatever we want.

7:32

We might call him Biggie, we might call him, you know, King of

7:34

New York. You know, we might call him

7:36

a lot of things. Man, there's a lot of names. We might call

7:38

him Frank White. I love the fact that he called himself Frank White

7:40

because clearly, rappers

7:42

have a lot of time to watch movies when

7:44

they're on tour, and I find that they're usually

7:46

some of the most voracious consumers of movies. So

7:48

they'll see a movie, and you'll be like, yo,

7:50

Christopher Walker played Frank White in King of New

7:52

York. Oh, is that where I come from? I'm

7:55

going to drown that name. I love

7:57

that. But you know what's crazy is like, this

7:59

was a also a concept album. It picks

8:02

up where the last song on his

8:05

debut album, which I think is

8:07

just an amazing album, Ready to

8:09

Die, an amazing album. It picks off

8:11

where that album left off. That

8:15

last song, I believe, is called

8:17

Suicidal Thoughts. This was life after

8:19

death, which made

8:21

a lot of sense at the time. Mo

8:24

Money, Mo Promise was a monster hit officially

8:26

ushering in what some people call the shiny

8:28

suit era of hip hop. I remember Fat

8:30

Joe's first

8:32

video, You Gotta Flow Joe, he had 80

8:34

guys in the Bronx standing on pure rubble.

8:37

Everybody had on the fat

8:39

jackets and the timbos. Nowadays,

8:44

Puffy takes over hip hop. When Puffy

8:46

and Biggie, I should say, take over

8:48

hip hop, everybody's wearing these shiny suits

8:51

in the videos. Even people who weren't

8:53

about that before, I'll never forget. I remember

8:55

Mike Geronimo, one of my favorite New York

8:57

rappers. If anybody wants to ever check out

9:00

Mike Geronimo, he's got some great songs, The

9:02

Natural Master I See. He's got a song

9:04

called Time to Build, which is the first

9:06

appearance, I'm going to talk in comic

9:08

book terms, it's the first appearance of

9:11

DMX, Jarl Rule, and Jay-Z All on

9:14

One Cut. Oh wow, that's canon. They're

9:16

all featured. Mike

9:19

Geronimo is the star of the

9:21

track and it's just funny because three years

9:23

later, they're all mega

9:26

superstars. I bring up Mike Geronimo just to

9:28

say that he was gully, he had

9:31

that New York swag going. Then literally

9:34

after Mo Money Mo Problems, Mike

9:36

Geronimo's next video, he's wearing a shiny suit and everybody's

9:38

like, oh, you know, the

9:40

shiny suits. I

9:43

want to dig into the story of the song and

9:45

the production and how it got made a little bit.

9:47

So as you probably know, there's a

9:49

squad working for a bad boy called the

9:51

Hitman. Those are the production team, right? The

9:53

Hitman. And, you know,

9:55

CvJ is in there, right? CvJ is in there.

9:57

CvJ is the co-producer of this song. Puff

10:00

gets co-producer credit, but when you say producer, it can

10:02

mean a lot of things. It's a spectrum of what

10:04

producer means. Puff Daddy is not the

10:06

Kanye type of producer. He's not like the premier

10:09

type of producer. He's not in there with MPC

10:11

making the beats, but what he is doing, and

10:13

this is kind of what we're talking about in

10:15

this topic, because he is a visionary. For whatever,

10:19

lots of things that can be said about Diddy or Puff

10:21

at the time, what he is, is

10:23

he's the guy that's like has the grand master vision.

10:25

Like we're gonna do this, we're gonna hit this up,

10:27

and he leans back and he directs people what

10:30

they're going to do musically in the chair. I also got the sense

10:32

that you would be like, you know what, I don't like those bells

10:34

right there. That's right. Bring down that bass

10:36

a little bit. And that's really crucial. I think

10:38

that's- Bring up that snare a little bit. That's

10:40

absolutely right, and that's underrated, because I think sometimes

10:43

people think, well unless you're touching the faders, are

10:45

you really making anything? And the answer is yes.

10:47

That is a very, Rick Rubin is a very

10:49

famous modern example of someone who's leaning back in

10:51

the chair, making choices and kind of helping with

10:53

the big picture. You know what, let's trash all

10:55

the songs and write completely new ones. It's sort

10:57

of like what a director does when he's looking

11:00

over his editor's shoulder. Right, or the

11:02

cinematographer. Director's not holding the camera usually.

11:04

Exactly, almost never has. Almost never, right.

11:06

But I say all of that, and

11:09

in this case, from what I understand,

11:11

the actual choice to flip the

11:14

sample, the Diana Ross sample, came from

11:16

Mace, who was a peril.

11:18

For real, and I- I never knew that. I

11:20

found a couple instances of him talking on

11:22

some footage of him where he's still mad.

11:26

Because it was his idea, and he brought it to-

11:29

And he didn't get a producer. He wanted it for

11:31

himself, and Stevie's like, that's great, let's do it. And

11:34

then Puff comes in and he's like, oh, this is for

11:36

big. That explains why I

11:38

think, if this is gonna

11:40

be controversial- Do it, go there. I

11:42

think that Biggie's verse is

11:44

obviously a classic Biggie verse, but I

11:46

think Mace has the best verse. And

11:48

that's probably because he found the track

11:50

and he felt the greatest connection to

11:53

this song. That's really interesting that you

11:55

bring that up. Because I think it's

11:57

like a solid- mid-class

12:00

Biggie verse. I can think of a lot of

12:02

Biggie verses where I'm like, oh, Biggie just proved

12:04

he's the goat. This is not really

12:06

one of those verses that I do feel like

12:08

the mace who's not, who's

12:11

hot, who's not like, he comes in on the

12:13

track with a certain connection to it that it

12:15

doesn't surprise me. He's the one who found the

12:17

sample. Right, and it's interesting you mentioned

12:19

that because that does become one of the more iconic

12:21

lines from the song. We'll get into it in a

12:24

bit, but that becomes an interpolation for Drake later. The

12:27

mace who's hot, who's not. Those bars may

12:29

be more than the Biggie bars. And

12:32

there may be some sub, I don't

12:34

know what we would call it back in, wasn't sub tweeting

12:36

back then, but maybe there's some

12:39

subbing of Koushacha. Yeah,

12:41

there's some shade maybe directed at a

12:43

certain other famous rapper Tupac.

12:45

There's a lot of things that

12:47

could rhyme with Tupac at the beginning of that mace

12:49

verse. Oh, okay, I'll talk about it

12:51

later. That sounds cool. So going back

12:53

to the story of how the song gets made, around

12:56

96, Puff brings his stable, The Hitman. They go

12:58

to Trinidad and they're like, we're just gonna get

13:00

out of town. We're gonna get out of the

13:03

mindset of all this stuff going down and we're

13:05

just gonna make music. So they

13:07

spend six weeks in hotels in Trinidad. They got

13:09

two rooms set up. Sounds like a dream. With

13:11

engineers and they just have The Hitman going through

13:13

track, track, track, track, crank, crank, crank, and a

13:16

lot of the stuff that ends up on Puff's

13:18

solo album, but also on the Biggie record. Oh,

13:20

Puff, Danny and the Family. A lot of that

13:22

stuff comes out of it. Which is an album that I

13:24

feel like goes very much hand

13:26

in hand, even with the sort of like sepia tone

13:29

album art. It came out a week later, right?

13:32

The Puff album comes out a week after the

13:35

More Money, More Problems comes out in 97, if

13:37

you can believe it. Wow. Yeah.

13:40

So basically it was Mace's idea to flip the

13:42

I'm Coming Out sample. He just came into the

13:44

studio, he's like, I got a great one. Give

13:46

it to me, give me I'm Coming Out. This

13:49

is this 1980 huge hit for Diana Ross, which

13:52

is effectively a chic song with Diana Ross

13:54

singing it. Cause it's now Rodgers and Bernard

13:56

Edwards and Tony Thompson. It's the band Chic

13:58

playing a song. and Diana Ross

14:00

is singing on top. And that actually ends up

14:03

being controversial later. Diana Ross doesn't like the song.

14:05

She has all the production redone. The versions you

14:07

end up hearing are remixed by other people and

14:09

she never works with the Sheik again, which is

14:11

ironic because it's a huge hit. It's everyone's favorite

14:14

Diana Ross album. It's a great

14:16

album. It's a great album. It's a great album.

14:18

And I've listened to the original Sheik version of

14:20

all these songs. And they sound pretty much the

14:22

same. Pretty similar. Well, that release. I

14:24

agree. There's barely, there's very

14:27

subtle differences. So the

14:29

Diana Ross sample, I want to play it for you

14:31

because one thing that's interesting that most people don't know is

14:33

in the first place, you're hearing a pretty

14:36

wholesale four bar loop of, I'm coming out.

14:38

In fact, when the song starts, you're like,

14:40

oh, the Diana Ross is on the radio.

14:43

Like it literally just is the song until you

14:45

get that wooka, wooka, wooka coming in. And

14:47

it's. Which

14:58

was the beef that a lot of us had

15:00

with Puffy and Bad Boy Records in general was

15:02

that, when you have people like

15:04

DJ Premier who take obscure records, flip

15:07

them into like pretty much

15:09

brand new compositions by just the way they

15:11

chop them up. And like DJ

15:13

Premier, Pete Rock, like these guys are like, they're

15:16

doing what Dilla will do in the 2000s. But

15:19

like probably in them, they were just like, I

15:22

may even let you know, we take hits from the 80s.

15:24

Literally. He told you what they

15:26

were doing. Yeah, so it sounds like it's a

15:28

single four bar loop, but what's actually going on

15:30

is a little more complicated. I'm going to play

15:32

it for you. There's actually two samples that are

15:34

being layered here. So here's the first Diana Ross

15:36

sample. And

15:48

here's the second sample. And then I'll play

15:50

them both together so you can hear how they blend.

16:02

Something that's really cool when you hear those

16:04

samples isolated is you hear all the grit

16:06

and crackle because these are vinyl records that

16:09

are being sampled. This is

16:11

still the era pre-digital. There are CDs and

16:13

such, but they're sampling these records. They're sampling

16:15

the vinyl copies of the records, so you

16:17

get all the grit. All right, now I'll

16:19

play them together. Oh,

16:29

and I almost left one thing out. There's actually a third

16:31

layer that comes in after every, I think, 16 bars. Which

16:37

is just that first beat, that

16:39

first downbeat. One, two, three, four.

16:43

That's all that was. By the way,

16:45

I remember that when this Diana

16:48

Ross sample was used in Mo

16:50

Money Mo Problems, it caused a little bit of controversy

16:53

at the time. There were whispers

16:55

of like, I'm coming out. Why

16:58

Puffy using, why do you sample a

17:00

gay anthem? This

17:02

is in the less woke era

17:05

of hip hop where there was

17:07

pretty rampant homophobia. I

17:11

think about some of the songs we used

17:14

to play then that nowadays you'll be doing

17:16

an old school set and you'll forget a

17:18

certain word or a certain something's coming up

17:20

in the song. You're

17:22

like, ooh, damn. That didn't age well. We got to live

17:24

with that. It didn't age well. We got to

17:27

listen to the sample one more time because there's

17:29

something about the use of it, the choice, literally

17:31

the selection, not just what I played for you,

17:33

which is the layering, but the selection of a

17:35

huge 1980 massive disco hit. That's

17:38

something I'm going to talk

17:41

about. I

17:47

got a question for you. Does this feel like

17:49

this is something Q-Tip would create, dig and

17:52

put in a tripod quest song? Does

17:54

this qualify as a sample in your opinion that

17:56

would be used in the De La Soul or?

18:00

it right like if you go back and

18:02

listen to you know me myself and I

18:04

like they didn't they didn't drastically change you

18:07

know that's that like there were times when buddy

18:10

which is a de la soul tribe called quest

18:13

you know classic really doesn't

18:15

do that much to change the song that they

18:17

sampled there you know like they took a snippet

18:20

that they like yeah put out there I think

18:22

what happened was the West Coast

18:24

blew up really big and

18:27

Ray you know around the time of the

18:29

chronic is a seminal album we could get

18:31

a whole episode talking about that but on

18:33

the chronic they didn't do sort of

18:35

like the the DJ

18:37

Premier Pete Rock interpolation

18:39

they were they were there was a lot

18:42

of interpolation but they were also just taking

18:44

like you know swing down sweet chariot stop

18:46

and let me ride like they just took

18:48

the song and wrapped over it right and

18:51

and not even in the subversive way I

18:53

would argue that like someone like Ghostface killer

18:55

will wrap over a song that he literally

18:57

didn't change like he'll literally just put on

19:00

a song you'll still hear the vocals singing

19:02

underneath it yeah you know I saw baby

19:04

doll you know like it's just like man

19:06

he didn't change a damn thing this is

19:08

somewhere in between and there were definitely rumblings

19:10

that what they were doing was like you

19:13

know taking a pop song from

19:15

a previous era you know probably

19:17

20 years ago and then just wrapping

19:19

over it so yeah so I yes

19:21

absolutely I do consider it a sample

19:23

but understand that this this

19:25

type of sampling though popular

19:29

with the public yeah did get critiqued

19:31

by a lot of their fellow artists I think

19:34

when when you got producers crate digging you know

19:36

in the sort of classic like I mentioned Q-tip

19:38

in yeah Dilla or whoever yeah like this is

19:40

there's a art to it which is

19:43

both the portion of the song which I think

19:45

you were referring to but also like what is

19:47

the song yeah and the more obscure the better

19:50

is kind of what I was alluding to a

19:52

little bit with with the Q-tip mention yeah what's

19:54

happening here is that that is

19:56

not important to the hitmen the

19:58

hitmen they're called the hitmen Let's take a hit and

20:01

make a hit. It's right there in the title. There's

20:03

no surprises going on. But you know, I will say that

20:05

like, you know, some of this, when you look back now,

20:08

you do realize like, there,

20:11

anybody could have done this. They

20:13

did it effectively. Right. You know

20:15

what I mean? And so to a certain extent, I'm not even

20:17

adopting, you know, an argument that would

20:19

have been made against the critics back then. All y'all

20:21

just hatin'. Right. We've shown

20:23

out, you know, all these CDs and shows. I'm

20:26

not making that case about it. I'm not saying

20:28

any, just any old thing that works with the

20:30

public is automatically good. But

20:33

the fact is they, you know, the fact

20:35

that they took a song, a Diana Ross song that

20:37

at that point in my life, I'd never heard this

20:39

song. You know, like I just hadn't. And

20:42

I was like, oh man, that, you know, that sounds really

20:44

cool. So to

20:46

a certain extent, the youth will

20:48

sort of drive the way. You know what I mean? Like

20:50

a song that was 20 years old

20:53

at the point that I was probably 18,

20:56

you know, that's going to be a brand new song

20:58

to a certain extent if it's an album cut. And

21:00

you probably feel the history. You can tell that what's

21:02

being sampled is a song

21:05

that is from the past, whether or

21:07

not you were familiar with it personally.

21:10

And that gives it something that makes

21:12

it hip hop, probably. Absolutely. I

21:14

mean, again, place everything in its context. It was the late 90s.

21:17

Boogie Nights is in theaters. Puffy's

21:19

Sampling Disco. Like Disco was back in a big

21:22

way in the end of the 90s because, you

21:25

know, again, it was 20 years old and anybody

21:27

who was like, you know, under 30 thought, oh

21:29

wow, this is fun. We're taking our parents' music.

21:31

And you're right. You kind of alluded to it

21:33

in the opening. It's like it's a quarter century

21:35

after the beginning of hip hop, which begins with

21:37

disco and funk. But we're going

21:39

back with this period of West Coast interpolations

21:41

and kind of slowed down George Clinton, whatever,

21:43

this, that and the other. We're kind of

21:45

going back to hip hop origins with

21:48

tracks like this one. Exactly. And

21:51

to your point, it wasn't just Diana Ross.

21:53

Like they were literally taking so many

21:55

things from, you know, 15 and 20

21:57

years ago. So he didn't just hit

21:59

up Diana. You got niggas down like

22:01

me for whatever

22:04

reason. You

22:07

got niggas that don't really see me

22:09

bitch. You

22:12

got niggas f'ing a'ing. Cause I'm always

22:14

with they bitch. It's

22:16

the same thing the song starts and you're like, Oh,

22:18

here comes David Bowie's Let's Dance. It's the same thing

22:20

as with Mo Mo Any More Problems. The

22:22

song starts with it. It could be the original song.

22:24

It's only slightly modified. It sort of pitch down a

22:27

little. It could be a little bit slowed down. Listen,

22:30

not everybody was in love with this kind

22:33

of sampling back then. And some people are

22:35

still like, Oh, no, you know, I got

22:37

to have, you know, that the

22:39

fact that like someone like Q-Tip can take a

22:41

mini-Ripperton song and take the

22:44

quietest part of the song and then flip

22:46

it into, you know, a number of songs.

22:49

A number of Q-Tip songs are

22:51

based off of mini-Ripperton's songs. Like, you

22:53

know, to me that is the art,

22:56

but, you know, but this, this

22:58

was something different. This was Puffy

23:00

taking pop music back from the

23:02

West Coast because by this point, Snoop is off

23:04

death row, you know, the prizes for the taking.

23:10

And for, you know, the first couple

23:12

of years after Biggie's gone, New

23:14

York definitely reasserted its dominance, you know,

23:16

because you had Puffy, you

23:18

had Busta Rhymes releasing, you know, his solo records.

23:21

He'd moved on from leaders of the new school.

23:23

He's not really claiming Native Tongues in the same

23:25

way. We're in the Wu-Tang era. Wu-Tang,

23:27

I would argue, is not really on the scene right

23:29

now either. I think Wu-Tang has like this amazing

23:32

period from like 93 to 97, 98, where

23:36

they're driving the culture. But I remember, I think the only

23:38

album that came out from Wu-Tang in like 97, 98 might

23:41

have been like Inspecta Deck or something like that. They passed

23:43

the torch along to pop. I'm not

23:45

sure they were passing any torch. Whether they meant

23:48

to or not. I think that what happened was

23:50

New York discovered how to make hit

23:52

records in a way that sort

23:54

of like, you know, and also the

23:56

South is coming up now. So you've got Jay-Z,

23:58

Ja Rule, D-A-N-E, DMX like that's sort of the

24:01

new face of New York right

24:03

at this time I think the Rizzo was

24:05

hanging with Quentin Tarantino and doing the Bobby

24:07

digital album, you know But like, you know,

24:09

this is this is New York's, you

24:11

know dominance and then 50 Cent

24:13

comes in Yeah But then sometime around the

24:15

time 50 Cent comes in and Eminem is

24:18

a huge major pop star then the South

24:20

comes in Right and all this

24:22

swings on a pivot that we call life

24:24

after death Aka mo money mo problem signal

24:26

just to add one more point by the

24:28

way to the sample transformation in favor of

24:30

like the you know The cred reputations of

24:33

the hitman or or or

24:35

puff in general, you know It is

24:37

important to mention that this is a

24:39

transformed sample not just because of the

24:41

layering but because it's layered furthermore with

24:44

Additional instrumentation. So what Stevie J does and

24:46

I think out of the hitman he was

24:48

known to be one of the most instrumental

24:50

gifted Yeah, he's programming some beats and I

24:52

can play for them And

25:04

when you hear it isolated And when you that's a very

25:06

strong scratch That's a very strong

25:08

scratch and when you hear it isolated you can

25:10

kind of hear the song that is the momentum

25:12

of the song The beat of the song is

25:14

not the disco beat. It's really coming from the

25:16

additional material that Stevie J adds Not

25:19

the least of which is the bassline which is

25:21

completely original Is

25:33

that a live bass that's a synthesizer

25:35

and he's playing that he's playing that

25:37

part on a synth layered By

25:39

the way, the probably the reason for it is

25:41

that in the mix when you've got a sample

25:43

and you've got all these beats There's not a

25:46

lot of room left for where the bass like

25:48

content would go then not just blow up your

25:50

speakers So when you play a

25:52

synth, it's a lot more controllable You can kind

25:54

of control where it sits in the mix basically

25:56

So I'll put that together with the sample and

25:58

you can hear how the blend is actually

26:00

very helpful. Can I

26:03

just say as a

26:05

DJ, this is a

26:07

hard record to mix in. It

26:16

comes in like, you kind of

26:19

want mixing room. Yeah,

26:23

I feel like some producers will give you

26:25

a little snare hit like a cat. I

26:29

thought I'm out. Something like that. I

26:31

remember this was a hard one. Just immediate.

26:33

It's now. It's starting now. I

26:36

remember that. And also back in the

26:38

vinyl days, you'd pull the record back and

26:40

when you scratch it in, it would

26:42

actually jump one beat ahead. And

26:46

so coming crazy and everybody would look at

26:48

you. Not DJ friendly, but not made by

26:50

DJ. No, not made by DJ. Hit record

26:52

producers for the radio. It's changed when we

26:55

moved to laptops and CDs. There

26:57

was no skipping, but in the skipping days, this

26:59

one was a little hard. But you're making such

27:01

an interesting point because we were just talking about the

27:03

birth of hip-hop being in a room. I think

27:05

we're in a moment in hip-hop where hip-hop is for

27:08

the radio. Like literally, let's make a hit for

27:10

the radio is the intention behind this track. And

27:13

they didn't really consider DJs needing a

27:15

little time to get the record set

27:17

up. But this song is a

27:19

pivot because to me, I grew up in the

27:21

South. I grew up in Atlanta.

27:24

But to me, most of the early

27:26

90s hip-hop that came out of New York

27:28

was grimy and gritty. It was Dawes FX.

27:31

It was Mobb Deep. Dawes' first

27:33

album, Millmatic, is like an ode

27:36

to a pre-Giuliani New York. You

27:38

know what I mean? And that

27:40

was what everybody thought of

27:42

when they thought of New York. It

27:44

was like rhymes and skills and it

27:47

wasn't about all these material things.

27:49

It was about really, people don't

27:51

even talk about Redman and K-Solo.

27:55

We were talking a little bit earlier about EPMD. Rock

27:57

Kim is sort of the birth of that. What

28:00

sort of? The brothers? And then. Something.

28:02

Happened I'm still convinced as because everybody

28:05

saw the west coast is the west

28:07

coast was selling plat never going platinum

28:09

you know I mean say one I

28:11

am I about M C Hammer and

28:13

realize they run as I about like

28:15

the highest selling rappers were talking about

28:17

like the ji sung sound. Everything

28:19

the Drape put out after The Chronic

28:21

you know started with that it but

28:23

it's getting the lights. Every they they

28:26

did was to suit and it's doggy

28:28

style. Doubling the cover of Rolling Stone

28:30

Magazine and it was. Ip were really

28:32

paying attention to hip hop on a

28:34

different way was like the beginning of

28:36

Hip of Ascension to slowly replacing rock

28:38

as like the music of the youth

28:40

culture and. I truly think that

28:43

like the east coast saw this

28:45

you know people like tribe called

28:47

quest. Mob details or

28:49

Texas like. You know, which are

28:51

not really that far apart? would you take a

28:53

bow legged? Both of them are from queens you

28:55

know who mean like they they were watches, They're

28:57

like, well, You know where

29:00

we're going to be? The protectors of hip

29:02

hop is arts and I think. What?

29:04

Puffy did by Brady, some by as

29:06

talented. As. Big as a

29:09

lyricist. he. Brought.

29:11

Some guy who was under sail we can't ever

29:13

claimed big he didn't have. Very.

29:15

Good enough flow but he put it

29:17

with production. Yeah, was as shiny and

29:19

is pop driven. Ah as would Ray

29:21

was doing on the west coast. Nice

29:23

I met Potent Mix sort of came

29:26

together. You start seeing the beginnings of

29:28

it on Ready To Dive Raid. I

29:30

still very sort of like New York

29:32

Gritty Album. You know, I mean belied

29:34

by the time we Get to Live

29:36

at the Death. Is a

29:39

different Big Nino to me and like

29:41

he's doing you know songs with Jay

29:43

Z's doing songs with as exam song

29:45

with are killing on their. you

29:48

know his his his bridging the

29:50

gap between rmb listeners and hip

29:53

hop right and again mo

29:55

money mo problems in it's saudis

29:57

in it seine suit glory Is

30:00

a song that you don't have to

30:02

be like wearing a Scully and

30:05

you know those kind of gloves and everybody wore

30:07

in Like a puffy jacket like no you can

30:09

be an R&B listener I was gonna appreciate part

30:11

of what we just what we don't like to

30:13

do But collective as people and also on the

30:15

show is like get a little too Like

30:18

going down the rabbit hole of like pinning

30:20

down Definitions because that that's just a waste

30:23

of everyone's energy However, it does

30:25

I'm curious to know your opinion Like is

30:27

this track a hip-hop track a pop track

30:29

an R&B track does it matter or what

30:32

would be what if it's a pie? What's

30:34

the allocation because I think that would

30:36

be an easier question to answer with With

30:39

a non-stop with New York State. I mean like that's a

30:41

hip-hop track and what is it look I think Almost

30:44

everything on life after death is

30:47

absolutely hip-hop all I'm saying that

30:49

you take hip-hop's You know arguably

30:51

hip hip and going on the radio makes

30:53

it a pop makes it a

30:55

pop song only after the fact Is that

30:57

what you know? And

31:01

you put him over not the

31:03

DJ premiere You know one of my

31:05

favorite songs on life after death is I got a story to

31:07

tell I think it's a fantastic

31:09

track But that track is not meant

31:12

to push the album to

31:14

sell records or to you know

31:16

Bill Biggie stand. Yeah, that's that's a song for

31:19

the street, right? That's I got

31:21

a meeting it up on the right money more problems,

31:23

you know Sky's

31:26

the limit I think is on this album. These

31:29

are songs that are very smooth, right? Very

31:31

big papa biggie Yeah, you know I said

31:33

we're gonna give him a million names in

31:35

this episode by the time big pop

31:39

Yeah, that that dude he can rap

31:41

over any smooth song You know

31:43

and make it hot by the way when

31:45

hypnotized comes out There

31:48

are a lot of people were like Oh biggie

31:50

just released the West Coast record, right? Yeah,

31:53

her by her balbert felt like

31:55

a really wet But

31:59

you know again Biggie showed the

32:01

industry that you didn't have to

32:03

sacrifice your lyricism to sell

32:05

a lot of records. All you had

32:07

to do was change the production. And

32:09

I think that you have to give him

32:11

credit because what

32:14

he sort of opened the door for

32:16

was, you know, Labelmates 112

32:18

on the R&B front, Mary

32:22

J. Blige, you know, she comes

32:24

in, the real love remix has

32:26

Biggie on it. Look up in the sky, it's a

32:28

bird, it's a plane. You know, like, Biggie

32:31

was always saying like, hey, we can sell records

32:33

too, we just got to give people something different.

32:35

And you see it in 112, you

32:38

see it in MACE, you see it in the

32:40

Locks, you know, total. But

32:42

you know, like, it's because of Bad Boy's

32:44

success with this format that we got three

32:47

of, I think, just seminal New

32:49

York labels. You got Rough Riders,

32:51

which gave us DMX and Swiss

32:53

Beats. You had Murder, Inc., which

32:55

gave us Ja Rule and Ashanti.

32:58

And you had Rockefeller, which

33:00

gave us Jay-Z and eventually

33:02

Cameron and Dipset and

33:05

Kanye West. And, you

33:07

know, these labels, these New York

33:09

based labels, you know, they were

33:11

watching what Puffy was

33:13

doing at Bad Boy. It was a

33:15

violator label, you know, also great label

33:18

at this time. And everybody was doing

33:20

that while Raucous was over here sort

33:22

of keeping it New York true, doing

33:25

its stuff with Most Def and Blackstar,

33:27

you know, and a rapper named Socrates,

33:29

which I remember because everybody on the

33:31

scene was like, Socrates is the best

33:33

freestyle and rapper in New York. And,

33:36

you know, sometimes those

33:38

rappers don't, the

33:40

best freestyle rapper isn't necessarily the

33:42

best when it comes to writing. And

33:44

we still have the left field stuff, as it were, we

33:47

still have the like native tongue stuff is still happening. They

33:49

still exist, but are they kind of on the down? You

33:51

know, it's always like, let me be

33:53

very clear. I think Wu Tang makes

33:55

great records from 93 till today. And

33:57

I think that Q-tip And

34:00

De la Soul, you know, recipes

34:03

true going like I they did.

34:05

All these people. Have

34:07

made gray records but there's a point of which

34:09

are driving the culture F and as a point

34:11

at which there are other people drive him in

34:13

our eyes a sort of the end of their

34:15

Ryan right. I'm yeah, I think so

34:17

because I think by the time beats runs

34:19

in, life comes I did us the next

34:22

record. Ah in I'm already missing to

34:24

outcast at that point them and sign and noticed

34:26

that the south the south guess them to the

34:28

say. You. know as as many that he

34:31

added. By. By to come back

34:33

to Puffy I think that life at a

34:35

Death plants a certain flag in the ground

34:37

and says hey, neared it's around York. And.

34:40

That's what. So I running back eighty

34:42

when Emmy like neither be, wasn't already

34:44

running New York. but. This. Album

34:46

which was a double album. you know? Ah

34:50

would have absolutely. Huge.

34:52

Huge. Huge Huge deserved a a Rain on

34:54

the Top while this album was out and

34:56

unfortunately he he just didn't get ice. I

34:58

know you are usually repel of these kind

35:00

of comparisons but I consider him a little

35:02

bit. the Kurt Cobain hour ago and I

35:05

have all day and we can say that

35:07

for later must take a break. I am

35:09

merely come back. I'll tell you why Think

35:11

that The Tories v Id. Is

35:14

like Kurt Cobain in a

35:16

Different. There's so much. More

35:19

so. For

35:38

to understand the two sides of biggie,

35:40

we we gotta go back further. Your

35:43

Ninety Ninety seven take me back. Now

35:45

I consider myself something of a voracious

35:47

consumer of mix tapes, and I the

35:50

my, that was. That was how you

35:52

got. so much hip

35:54

hop and i am like sometimes you'd be

35:56

like may i'll even listen the album but

35:58

daisies mixtape with you know DJ

36:01

you know DJ drama era is that what

36:03

this is I actually want to

36:05

get a shout out to our producer Eric

36:07

one because there's two Eric's in here they

36:09

can find the dance over who gets Eric

36:12

one and Eric to big E Eric reminded

36:14

me DJ clue world-famous

36:18

DJ cool DJ clue had the

36:20

greatest mixtapes at the time because

36:22

there were versions of songs that we will

36:24

probably never hear again because they were

36:26

just they weren't the album version they weren't the radio

36:28

version they were just a guy rapping over the instrument

36:30

we got it there's gonna be a whole episode we're

36:32

gonna have to do a mixtape episode every now and

36:34

then I go on

36:38

YouTube and someone has been so

36:40

kind to upload these these these

36:42

mixes but I remember hearing Biggie

36:44

very early on he was one

36:46

of he was in the sources

36:48

unsigned hype one month and that

36:50

was a big deal you know like that's when the

36:52

source was really driving things to like I'll never forget

36:54

when the source gave Illmatic

36:56

Nas's debut album the

36:59

five my proverbial five mics like everybody's like

37:01

yo Nas got five might ask big deal

37:03

they're saying there no notes like this is

37:05

the perfect album and by

37:08

the way if you go back and listen to Illmatic

37:10

now can I just say represent I might have cut

37:12

that song that song I

37:15

still believe we got to do classic album or

37:17

song that should be a segment absolutely every album

37:19

almost every album has a song you would cut

37:22

I got a guy but I remember Biggie small

37:24

the first time I heard him on a mixtape

37:26

and it was the song party and bullshit party

37:45

and bullshit I was you know I remember

37:47

everybody's like yo this dude is sick

37:49

and he's really ill and like you know where

37:51

the party at and can I bring my get

37:53

I was like oh don't let him in our

37:56

party we don't want any get to our party

38:00

but like that I mean you can hear

38:02

Biggie was rapping differently than he's in a

38:04

high register he's like you know he's

38:06

like that grimy street kid yeah out of out

38:08

of Brooklyn yeah I mean it just sounds really

38:10

different than what he's gonna end up sounding like

38:12

and there was there was something about the way

38:14

Biggie did use his voice and the way he

38:16

was weaving a story if you go back and

38:18

listen to that one and some of his earlier

38:20

songs I mean this is the first of our

38:22

two biggies this is how he was introduced to

38:24

us who were listening to hip-hop at the time

38:27

and it's ironic because if you go and

38:29

listen to his first album ready to die

38:31

he kind of acknowledges that

38:33

he had two styles coming into that

38:35

first album you know because on the

38:37

track give me the loot it's

38:40

like it's like a scene where like

38:42

an actor acts opposite himself like you

38:45

hear Biggie use both of his voices and

38:47

it's like he's having a conversation with himself

38:49

yeah I'm giving the loot one of the

38:51

greatest one of my favorite Biggie songs of

38:54

all time this gave me the loot off

38:56

of the debut album ready to die interpolation

39:04

of boys to men it's so

39:07

hard to say goodbye

39:10

but you know the

39:23

first time I heard that song I remember some

39:25

people thought it was two rappers on the song just

39:28

so nobody was like no that's Biggie

39:30

rapping both both verses and that's amazing

39:32

it was it was subtle enough that

39:34

like you know some people actually thought

39:36

it was two different rappers on the

39:39

Sun but there's also just again he's

39:41

like he's using if you if you

39:43

really study the lyrics he's using different

39:45

flows for the different voices like they

39:47

don't they don't their staccatos are a

39:49

little bit different and it's

39:52

listen it's violent I got kids now some of

39:54

these lyrics I'm like paying bring but like you

39:56

Know as a kid back then I was just like I was loving

39:58

it I was loving it completely. It is. There's a

40:01

line on their. They've. Got edited

40:03

on all the Cds the came out.

40:05

Of for ready to die he's gonna lie. Numbers

40:08

is as though give a. Dog. Or

40:10

a fuck if you're pregnant, give me the

40:12

baby rings and the number one mom pinned

40:14

and I'll never get on every city As

40:17

says, don't give a fuck if you're Joseph,

40:19

I wouldn't. Be

40:22

was a number one month and

40:24

it was like oh my first

40:26

and other words, that little where

40:28

the dance I wonder if anything

40:30

id this is not friggin' acceptable,

40:32

but is almost like the George

40:34

Clooney approach to making a movie

40:36

like an hour. Have a go.

40:39

Of movie career do most of two thousand and

40:41

he would do a Big Clooney when you a

40:43

big budget movie so every would do a small

40:45

yeah. You go off and do a small movie

40:47

and I feel like. That. Both

40:50

biggie, I'll miss a certain extent, have

40:52

songs for the Streets and then a

40:54

song made for radio and that another

40:56

nother Diddy. You. Know invented this

40:58

is a as a strategy to

41:00

get artist place but it definitely

41:02

felt like. He. Perfected

41:04

it for the nineties especially. I agree

41:06

skills might you know Because to this

41:09

day when I think about that album

41:11

I think about oh that's my favorite

41:13

song. Like the Warning is a great

41:15

song but it comes on right after

41:17

a saw that you feel like was

41:19

may be made at least with a

41:21

mic shows mix as being black radio

41:23

shows a at night so they would

41:25

play saw that You In Here during

41:27

the daytime but they're still acceptable and

41:29

others you could put him at some

41:31

time and they're covering all the different.

41:33

Markets are the different potential audience One

41:36

hundred percent is basically biggie effect that

41:38

coat on how to go both mainstream

41:40

without losing his street appeal and that

41:42

was sort of the that of potent

41:44

nature of the Second Piggy. The.

41:47

Biggie who you know some say that

41:49

expects the six spectacular. Let me lucky

41:51

on unit in the back. In this

41:53

like. That's. the other big like

41:55

is discussing it with another know that is

41:58

that as a guy who's wrapping for know

42:00

potentially R&B fans just still trying to

42:02

keep it a little grimy but you

42:04

know not the same as the biggie

42:06

we heard on that other song right

42:09

and it's that second biggie we get

42:11

a lot more of on life after death let me ask you

42:13

do you have his vocals on Mo

42:16

Money Mo Problem? I got them teed up right

42:18

here I got the Akatar. Where are you getting

42:20

this stuff are we gonna get are people gonna

42:22

come find us in the studio and kill us

42:24

cuz like you know it's one thing if it's

42:26

like here's some ELO sample I don't want Diddy

42:28

coming down like yo is this serious

42:31

I got friends and I places that's all I

42:33

can say shall we listen friends here I'm

42:36

your friend here what are you saying friendship come

42:38

on just don't want to be like yo who

42:40

leaked that stuff to luxury we're

42:43

not cool with that well we're gonna listen

42:45

anyway because it's pretty it's pretty hair raising on

42:48

listen this is isolated biggie smalls

42:50

my team supreme stay clean triple

42:52

beam lyrical dream I'll be that

42:54

catch a seat at all events

42:56

bet gets in hosters girls on

42:59

shoulders playboy I told you me

43:01

and Mike's to me bruise too

43:03

much I lose too much okay

43:06

I gotta say a couple of things about this

43:09

one is that biggie famously didn't

43:11

take paper into the studio yeah

43:13

he was completely off-book or memorized

43:16

how do you want to do two of the

43:18

first and yeah same way so

43:20

that that part of it is always amazing

43:22

to me how dialed in you

43:24

have to be to he's right in his head and

43:26

and to well not writing

43:28

him in his head but he but but it's in

43:31

his head it's innocent but but here's what here's what

43:33

I've always because I've always struggled with

43:35

the idea that biggie

43:37

died when he was 24 years old that's

43:39

a 24 year old and I hear it for

43:41

the first time in my entire life I can hear

43:43

a 24 year old rapping

43:45

because you have the vocals with no

43:47

treatment on yeah I feel like when

43:49

they're in the wreck right it's a

43:52

deeper like that sounds like a 24

43:54

year old when I hear the finished

43:56

track I hear a person who I

43:58

will never be older than You

44:00

know, like he always sounds like a deeper

44:02

registered boy. That is crazy. And the whole

44:04

of the big thing, my spirit's a pretty

44:07

straight swing, triple beam, never put green. I

44:09

beat that, catch feet at all of the

44:11

different events. That's been holed up,

44:13

girl, for sure, the first boy, I prayed

44:15

good. Be a mic to me, do two

44:17

marks, I lose two marks. One of the

44:19

things I love about hearing and playing and

44:21

sharing these isolated vocals is that you really

44:23

hear the human being. You even

44:26

hear the uhs and the headphone

44:28

bleed. You're picturing Biggie as

44:30

a human being. And that's who's in the

44:32

room with you. He's not a voice on

44:34

high with all the reverb

44:37

and doubled up. Enveloped

44:39

and protected by the musical bed and the beat

44:41

and the whole, and everything else going on. He

44:43

is just a human, a vulnerable person. He's a

44:45

24 year old kid with amazing talent. And

44:50

in some ways, it touches, it's

44:52

so tragic that he'd

44:54

be cut down so early. You know what I mean? And

44:57

something else that really comes clear when you listen

44:59

to the isolated vocals. I mean, you hear everything

45:01

we've been talking about. You hear his flow, the

45:03

unusual rhyme schemes where he's placing rhymes, not

45:06

just at the end of the line and

45:08

then rhyming it the next time. There's rhymes

45:10

within the line. There'll

45:12

be a word at the end of a line that

45:14

gets rhymed twice and then there's a new rhyme. All

45:16

that stuff is mixed up in addition to his choice

45:18

of where to place the syllables in

45:20

time. So what's really interesting is

45:22

when you learn that he had

45:25

a childhood friend, there's a guy in the

45:27

neighborhood who was a jazz cat who played

45:29

with Miles Davis, like a real guy named

45:31

Donald Harrison that took him under his wing,

45:33

that saw something innately in Chris, Young Chris,

45:35

Christopher Wallace and took him in. And

45:37

Young Chris would go to his house and they would

45:40

play jazz records. He'd play max Roach records and

45:42

point out in the drum solos, like

45:44

what he was doing and what was

45:46

interesting about it. So thinking about

45:49

the syncopation, ba da da da da da da

45:51

da da da da da da da da da

45:53

da da. The idea that the choices a drummer

45:55

makes are about how

45:57

to surprise the ear, how to do something

45:59

syncopated, which. means against the beat that would

46:01

be unexpected and interesting. That, I think, really

46:03

sunk in with Biggie when you think about

46:05

what he's doing with his choice of where

46:07

to put the syllable in the air, like

46:10

when to say something and when to give

46:12

it a little bit of space is

46:14

so unusual. You and I have never talked

46:16

about this ever. Okay. So

46:18

I'm just amazed and happy that you've brought

46:20

this up. What you're saying

46:22

is 100% right and what I've

46:25

heard somebody else far smarter than myself

46:27

say online was the

46:29

difference between Tupac and Biggie's flows

46:31

was that Biggie was

46:34

almost like using his voice as a

46:36

jazz instrument and Tupac was using his

46:38

voice as a preacher. That

46:41

is great. He's like, in the me's. I

46:43

frickin' love that. He almost sounds like Marler

46:45

the King. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But

46:47

Biggie's... And it's melodic like a

46:49

preacher too, right? Yes. I love

46:51

that. But Biggie, like you said, he's hitting... sometimes he's right

46:54

on the beat, but he's got so much rhythm he can

46:56

go off the beat and then bring it back to the

46:58

beat. And it sounds so casual and

47:00

easy. He's

47:02

not breaking a sweat while he's doing

47:04

it. No, no. It comes very natural to him. If

47:08

you think about his verse on One More Chance,

47:10

just the way you could... I'm

47:15

not gonna wrap it right now, but go

47:17

back and listen to it in the number

47:19

of times that he sort of takes a

47:22

syllable and stretches it past the

47:24

fourth beat into the first of

47:26

the next beat. Exactly. And

47:28

then he's going like... all that stuff is very

47:30

jazz-like. It's very drummer-y and we're both drummers, so

47:32

we talk about it. I remember one

47:35

of my first... when you're playing the drums and you learn your

47:37

fillas, the first one you learn is... And

47:41

you come right back on the one, right? And then

47:44

a little later on you learn... You're

47:49

kind of like not hitting the crash on the one.

47:51

You're finding new unexpected places to put the

47:53

rhythm, to put your beat. And shout out

47:55

to the public schools where they still have

47:57

band. Thank God

47:59

for that. So, you

48:01

know, this episode

48:03

is sort of like a love letter, you

48:05

know, to the Notorious B.I.G. And I

48:08

just think it's so wild. I

48:10

always try to avoid, you know,

48:12

drawing direct comparisons between genres, like

48:15

saying, oh, Tribe Called Quest

48:17

is the Rolling Stones of hip-hop. Like I really try to

48:19

avoid that stuff. We're going to do it on the show

48:21

a lot, whether you like it or not. No,

48:23

no, no. I almost agree. Good content. It's

48:26

cheapens everyone, but I will say... We'll vote

48:28

on it later. I will say there are

48:30

some... There

48:33

are some connecting tissue between, I think,

48:35

Biggie and Kurt Cobain in the sense

48:38

that, you know, there are

48:40

two major release albums under both

48:42

of their belts for Nirvana,

48:44

Nevermind and in Uter. I know

48:46

that they did Bleach. Look, Biggie

48:49

did a whole album worth of,

48:51

you know, stuff before he came out with

48:53

Ready to Die. But I'm

48:55

saying there are two sort of

48:57

major albums that both guys brought out

48:59

and then they're gone, you know, then they're

49:02

just gone. They're... Gosh,

49:05

this sounds like I'm trying to make it... Their

49:07

Rain on the Top is very brief. Yeah.

49:10

You know what I mean? They're

49:12

not around, but like they're lasting impression

49:14

on the genre. And when

49:17

you see kids who are 11 and

49:19

12 now walking around with Notorious

49:21

B.I.G. on their shirt, it

49:23

just really lets you know just

49:25

how much impact you can have in just

49:27

a really brief period of time. Just having

49:29

this conversation. Like if you go around the

49:32

world, you'll see just like graffiti and spray

49:34

paint and in T-shirts like who are the

49:36

iconic artists that have traveled? You'll see, I

49:38

think you might see some John Lennon. You'll

49:40

probably see some Bob Marley and you'll probably

49:42

see some B.I.G. and you might see some

49:44

Kurt Cobain. I think there's this small group

49:46

of artists who went too young that have

49:48

global impact decades after their impact. You know,

49:50

I think you've got to prove my point in

49:52

the sense that like John Lennon, Tupac,

49:55

these are guys who have a lot of albums. To

49:57

me, what connects Kurt with the band is the same.

50:00

with Chris is that

50:02

they kind of both broke out in 91. You

50:05

know what I mean? And by, you

50:08

know, by 97, they're both gone. And

50:10

you can't imagine the nineties without these

50:13

icons. You know, it's just their

50:15

impact was huge. Yes, perfectly put.

50:18

Well, that's our show. Thank you for sharing

50:20

the tale of two biggies with me. Anything

50:23

for you, my friend. Help me in

50:25

this thing. Let's do it together, shall we? Yes. Who

50:28

are you again? Well, I'm glad you

50:30

asked, because I am producer, DJ and

50:32

songwriter, Luxury. And I'm director, actor, writer,

50:34

and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And this

50:36

is One Song. Until

50:39

next time. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. One

50:43

Song is a SiriusXM and Kevin

50:46

Hart's LLL radio production. It's hosted

50:48

by me, Luxury, and my friend

50:50

Diallo Riddle. This episode was produced

50:53

by Matthew Nelson and Jordan Colling

50:55

with Engineering from Marcus Homme. Additional

50:57

production support from Leslie Guam, Charles

51:00

Shoulders, and Alicia Shimada. The show

51:02

is executive produced by Kevin Hart,

51:04

Ty Randolph, Mike Stein, Brian Smiley,

51:07

Eric Eddings, and Eric Wilde. Well,

51:11

we really hope you enjoyed that

51:14

episode. To keep up to date

51:16

with Luxury and I, find us

51:18

on Instagram. I'm at Diallo, D-I-A-L-L-O,

51:20

and Luxury is at Luxury, L-U-X-X-U-R-Y.

51:23

Or on TikTok, where I'm at Diallo

51:25

Riddle. And he's at Luxury. Or on

51:27

Twitter, which is now X, and you

51:30

know what? Instagram and TikTok

51:32

will be just fine. Stick around, keep

51:34

your eyes on this feed, and we'll

51:36

have more for you very soon.