(The following article was taken from "Grant Publication" magazine and not typed out by notoriousonline.com)
Notorious BIG
Interview with the late rap star
Notorious BIG.
Interview by Havelock Nelson
Interview talked to the notorious B.I.G. in 1994, when he was on the
verge of becoming the next big thing in rap. when he was killed in March
of this year, we remembered the feeling and candor he freely gave, so we
went back and found the following vulnerable, almost prescient,
passages, now presented for the first time
It's late January 1997. Hard-edged rapper the Notorious B.I.G. sits in
the lounge area of Bad Boy Entertainment CEO Sean "Puffy" Combs's
recording studio holding his baby son, Christopher Wallace, Jr., and
looking happy and ahead - down a level road to riches.
He's talking about his sophomore set, Life After Death (Bad Boy
Entertainment/Arista), the follow-up to 1994's cinema-verite-cool Ready
to Die, which brilliantly translated the brutal black-mafia world he
inhabited into beautiful street poetics. "When the album drops, March
twenty-fifth, it's going to be the biggest thing ever," he says.
"Everything has to be big." Clearly, be wasn't ready to die, but five
weeks after our encounter, the self-described "black Frank White" was
fatally shot in Los Angeles.
Biggie's outlook just before his death was sunnier than it had been
three years earlier, at the time of the following interview - one of the
first major pieces on the emerging star (Interview, November 1994). Here
is more from that meeting, a look back that recalls the joy of Biggie's
life, as well as its inescapable violence.
HAVELOCK NELSON: Is this the new Bad Boy look? Black on black on black,
with black clothes, black shades, and the black gangster-style cap and
all that?
THE NOTORIOUS
B.I.G.: Just tryin' to keep it
real and all-black. Just bangin', you know?
HN: What's a typical day like for you?
B.I.G.:
These days? Just waking up
like nine o'clock in the morning, going to different record stores,
catching planes, going to the studio, you know? Thinking of ideas for
songs for myself and for Junior M.A.F.I.A. Just workin'.
HN: What was a day like before you started making records?
B.I.G.:
Well, I was just on the corner, selling drugs with my niggas.
HN: What was that like?
B.I.G.:
Basically, it was the same thing: waking up around nine o'clock so you
can catch the check-cashing place at nine-fifteen, nine-thirty. I didn't
have checks, but the crackheads did.
HN: Where did you do your hustle?
B.I.G.:
Fulton Street and Washington [Avenue, in Brooklyn].
HN: That's a place you don't want to hang out too long if you're not
recognized. It's not a Ken-and-Barbie fantasy suburb.
B.I.G.:
It's just real niggas. You know there ain't no tall tales. I think every
comer goes through the same drama our corner goes through. It was just
niggas hustling - regular kids with a philosophy of "Let's just get the
money."
HN: When you're out there, you see everything that's going on: the good,
the bed, the ugly - and the crazy, sometimes.
B.I.G.:
I'm expecting something to happen, because it's nothing special to me.
It happens on every corner I go to in Brooklyn. I'm immune to it. The
only time that hearing someone got killed is a surprise to me is when
it's somebody I was close to. So then I have a feeling: I have mourning
for them.
HN: Have you ever seen somebody killed in front of your eyes?
B.I.G.:
Hell yeah. My man Cheese, God bless him. He died in my arms in the
subway station at Clinton and Washington.
HN: Did you actually see him get -
B.I.G.:
No. He was downstairs in the station and we were upstairs on the corner
hustling. We just heard two loud shots. Sounded like cannons: Boom!
Boom! We ran downstairs and saw Cheese just spread out.
HN: How did that make you feel?
B.I.G.:
I felt fucked up. I thought, My man is gonna die. No one wants a nigga
to die.
HN: Why did he get shot?
B.I.G.:
Nobody ever found out.
HN: How old were you the first time you saw someone get shot?
B.I.G.:
Fifteen, sixteen. I really didn't get to see no blood squirtin'. All I
know is we was runnin' and we was chasin' this nigga. The nigga says,
"Stop!" and I heard a shot: Pow! I saw a dude drop. My man put the gat
to his head, somebody screamed "Run!" and we all ran. This was just
real. It was nothin'. We were seeing niggas gettin' hit all the time.
HN: How did you get caught up in street life in the first place?
B.I.G.:
It was just basic living.
HN: You're not selling drugs anymore, but you're still living in the
same apartment. Is it hard to be on the same corner?
B.I.G.:
Hell yeah, man! Because sometimes I be jealous of them niggas. Even
though it was dead wrong what I was doing, we still had mad fun.
HN: Tell me about the fun.
B.I.G.:
Going shopping all the time, just being in the neighborhood and getting
money and knowing that in other neighborhoods there's niggas getting
money. It's like a little competition. We was young, so we was just goin'
to get jewelry and clothes and stay the flyest. And the girls - there
was the whole competition about the girls and who had the prettiest
girlfriend. Then there was goin' to school, flyin' it with other fly
niggas in school, and niggas gettin' motorcycles and niggas gettin'
Honda Accords and [Jeep] Cherokees. We'd go to the movies on the
weekends, go to 42nd Street with the fellas, bump into a whole bunch of
girls, party. . . . It was just on, you know what I'm sayin'? It was
fun!
HN: But why be jealous of them? You're still making money. And it's all
legit.
B.I.G.:
But it's not the same. Until I get to the point where I want to be,
where I'm selling crazy records and I can bring all my niggas with me,
I'm doing all this shit by myself. I'm lonely. I'm bored. I've got my
one little man with me - Little Caesar - he's part of Junior M.A.F.I.A.
I put him under the wing and he'll come up.
HN: Tell me about deciding to leave the streets behind to go make
records.
B.I.G.:
I didn't really leave the streets behind. I try to chill with my niggas
as much as possible.
HN: But what about those guys who aren't as cool anymore, the "playa
haters"?
B.I.G.:
My niggas only act that way towards niggas that don't show no love, you
know what I'm saying? My niggas know I'm always gonna be there. I gotta
help my niggas now, because they were there for me before all this rap
shit came. Those are the niggas I was representin'. None of those other
crazy motherfuckers would take a bullet for me. I feel like my manager,
Mark Pitts, is the only nigga who would probably go all out, 100
percent, for me. And Puff [Combs] too. I can't even front on Puff. He
ain't no wimp-ass nigga.
HN: How do you feel now that the record's doing so well?
B.I.G.:
I'm just charmed.
HN: What's your favorite song on the album?
B.I.G.:
My favorite is "Everyday Struggle," 'cause that's just me.
(The article above was taken from "Grant Publications" magazine and nor typed out by notoriousonline.com)