One of the biggest innovations of Bad Boy - a label whose ‘90s hits have aged better than songs decades their junior - was how its biggest hits presented R&B and rap as two naturally complementing flavors. The resulting shock raps were too much: The lines “I wouldn’t give a fuck if you’re pregnant” and “Bitches get strangled for their earrings and bangles” were even censored on Ready to Die’s Parental Advisory version.Ģ3. effortlessly giving his two characters definition: The older robber is the kind of guy who sees murder as an inconvenience (“Don’t be a jerk and get smoked over being resistant”), while his helium-voice partner takes joy in crime the same way a child might beg for a Sega Genesis (“Oooooooo, Biggie let me jack her!”). The Ready to Die fan favorite finds B.I.G. But he has himself become a byword for all things hip-hop: his words still hypnotize.“Gimme the Loot” stands out because it’s one of the more animated examples of Biggie’s signature knack for vivid details. As for Biggie, aka Christopher Wallace, he didn’t survive America’s unforgiving streets long enough to see the single reach No.1, let alone see the album it came from become one of hip-hop’s biggest successes of all time. Hypnotize has since been sampled by countless other artists and used in numerous films, and is now considered one of the greatest singles of all time. Twist in a bevy of beautiful young ladies, cash money, jewellery, champagne, cocktails, chandeliers, grand pianos, glass sculptures and even mermaids, and you have a definitive document of hip-hop’s bling era. Set in the Florida sun, it featured a cavalcade of black helicopters, speed boats, motorcycles and open-top cars, with mysterious interlopers chasing Biggie and Puffy as they struggle to get on with their hectic schedule of parties. But where Alpert’s original remained coolly relaxed, Biggie’s take was amped to the max underneath lyrics that delivered a mixture of wisdom and devil-may-care profligacy (“My car go one-60, swiftly/Wreck it – buy a new one”).ĭirected by Paul Hunter (Erykah Badu, D’Angelo, Jay-Z), that insanely over-the-top clip matched Biggie’s cinematic rhymes with blockbuster visuals.
Alpert had long led The Tijuana Brass, purveyors of Latin-tinged easy-listening jazz best known for chirpy instrumentals such as Spanish Flea and Tijuana Taxi, but he flipped the script in 1979, introducing a new sound that steamed with all the heat rising up from the summer asphalt. Produced by Puffy the previous year, Hypnotize samples the chassis of Rise, a low-riding roller-skating jam Rise by the trumpet-playing A&M Records founder Herb Alpert. Though Life After Death was chock-full with collaborations, Hypnotize was essentially a Biggie solo rap, with a strangely dead-eyed – indeed, hypnotised – chorus by Pamela Long, on loan from R&B group Total, that proved he didn’t need anyone’s help in order to leave audiences spellbound. Now considering himself talented enough that he could “never lose”, Biggie also underlined his bond with Puff Daddy’s Bad Boy stable (“Poppa and Puff/Close like Starsky and Hutch”) and even threw in a reference to Da Doo Ron Ron, a hit by the 60s girl group The Crystals, for good measure (“Your crew run run run, your crew run run”). here.Ī taster of that album’s forthcoming success, Hypnotize is a brashly echoing, ground-hugging cut – a tribute to Biggie Smalls’ own “sicker than your average” lyrical skills, with the rapper unapologetically spinning a lyrical web in which he hypes every part of his lifestyle, whether it be his footwear (“Timbs for my hooligans in Brooklyn”) or “the Lexus, LX, four and a half/Bulletproof glass, tints if I want some ass”. Listen to the best of The Notorious B.I.G. However, just less than a week after the song’s release, Biggie was dead, and Life After Death hit the shelves as if it were some eerily belated prophecy. songs in a career most assumed would last for years to come.
Picked as the album’s explosive first single, Hypnotize, issued just weeks earlier, on 4 March, also scored a Grammy nomination, went platinum, and was immediately hailed as one of the best Notorious B.I.G. released his expansive sophomore album, the Grammy-nominated, diamond-selling double-disc Life After Death in late March 1997. The Brooklyn, New York City-born hip-hop legend The Notorious B.I.G.
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