“Damn, a nigga’s style is unorthodox,” he brags. Biggie’s style here hearkens to his protean “Party and Bullshit” phase as he kicks hardcore verses about smoking trees, flipping keys, and making crazy cheese. It dropped at the tail end of 2002, just as 50 Cent was emerging as a superstar, and was subsequently included in the 2003 Bad Boys II soundtrack. On “Realest Niggas,” 50 Cent and producers Red Spyda and DJ Whoo Kid revive verses from Biggie’s “Niggas,” a track released on the 1999 posthumous album Born Again. Image Credit: John Shearer/WireImage for Nickelodeon Magazine On this 1994 session, from Funkmaster Flex’s Hot 97 radio show, Biggie compares his mic prowess to at least three STDs (“Herpes, gonorrhea, chlamydia, gettin’ rid of ya”) before boasting that “MCs break fast like flapjacks and bacon” any time he steps near a booth. “The Wickedest Freestyle” is just straight bars of pure pain, with some of the former horror-core-adjacent MC’s most punishing lines. Image Credit: Al Pereira/Getty Images/Michael Ochs Archives) Prophetic verse: “No human being, Korean or European, be seein’ what Big be seein’.” - J.G. Yet the handclaps and slickly, sickly syncopated congas courtesy of a Gap Band sample are a perfect bed for Frank White’s flow. He was post-”Juicy” but new enough that Dupri refers to him as “the Big,” which remains jarring. (1994)ĭa Brat was barely off her debut on a Kriss Kross cut when this promo 12” dropped featuring Biggie, still a relatively new artist at the time. “Don’t really wanna show you what a G I be/I’d rather be sipping Remy in the VIP/We can hear the music, it’ll be by me/Twista with the legendary nigga BIG,” raps Twista in a tongue-twisting homage.

The video remix finds Krayzie Bone from Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Twista and 8Ball & MJG garlanding the track with Southern and Midwest flows, while Killer Mike, Sleepy Brown, Layzie Bone, Wish Bone, and R&B singer Cheri Dennis make cameos. Image Credit: Paul Warner/WireImage for The Recording AcademyĬentered around Biggie’s classic verse from “Notorious Thugs” and remixed by Swizz Beatz for Duets: The Final Chapter, “Spit Your Game” is one of his better posthumous tracks. Twista, Krayzie Bone, and 8Ball & MJG (2005) And his recitable verses made this elegy a heart-rendering hit. His admission that “I swear for three days I cried” still makes you shed a thug tear. exhibits his dominance as a legit song crafter. And on this tribute to his fallen friends, B.I.G. There’s a scene in the 2009 biopic Notorious where a producer, after hours of bar-crammed takes, tells Biggie’s character, “That’s fire!” once he hones a radio-friendly hook. Image Credit: Clarence Davis/NY Daily News Archive/Getty Images

Big is better by song