Biggie Smalls Duets The Final Chapter Rarlab
Biggie smalls duets the final chapter rarlab. The notorious b.i.g. Notorious b.i.g. / duets the final chapter 2005 or 2pac / until the end of time 2001. Faith evans working on duets album with notorious big. Avery storm during notorious big duets the final chapter album release party. Avery storm during notorious big. About “Nasty Girl”. This was the first single from The Notorious Duets: The Last Chapter which was released at the end of 2005, almost 9 years after B.I.G.’s death. This Jazze Pha produced hit was a remake of Biggie’s track Nasty Boy from the posthumous 1997 landmark and aptly named Life After Death, which was released two weeks.
Pop culture loves its deceased icons. James Dean. Elvis. Jim Morrison. River Phoenix. Kurt Cobain. All have achieved near-immortality since their passing, their limited bodies of work put on a pedestal and earmarked for eternal greatness. While these artists have become larger than they ever were during their limited lifetimes, it's the hip-hop community who has taken the canonization of its fallen heroes to new heights.One only has to look as far as Eazy E, Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace (aka Biggie Smalls/Notorious B.I.G.). While Eazy garnered a few tribute albums since his untimely death due to complications brought about by AIDS, Tupac and Biggie have managed to become larger than they ever were in life since their still unsolved murders. The mystique and controversy surrounding their deaths has only added to their legends.
It is this very same mystique and controversy that makes an album like Duets: The Final Chapter so intriguing. For starters the name implies that this is the last album the world will get from B.I.G. However, astute historians will note that nothing is ever so final in the world of rap music. Too $hort announced his retirement from the rap game back in 1992. He went on to record no less than nine albums since then. Jay-Z announced his retirement during the recording of his 2003 release The Black Album. And while he hasn't released an album since then, he took over as the President of Def Jam Records and has done numerous guest appearances on other people's records, plus there are rumors that he'll record another album. Retirement rumors have hounded Eminem, as well, with the artist clarifying that he's just going to take a sabbatical. Given the track record that's already been established, one has to wonder if this will be the final Biggie album, the chapter that closes the book on one of Brooklyn's finest and finally lets the Notorious one truly rest in peace.
That's not the only subtext weighing heavy on the concept of Duets. Most prominently, the specter of commercial gain can't be ignored on a release such as this. Since the passing of Tupac the rap music industry has gone out of its way to exploit the deaths of the genre's most recognized icons, pumping out posthumous albums with a frequency that leave's most rap fans dizzy. It's no wonder that people joke about how Tupac has released more albums since his death than when he was alive. This very subject was obviously weighing heavy on Diddy's mind when putting together Duets
. The rap mogul sees fit to comment on the very subject during his contribution to the album's first proper track, 'It Has Been Said' stating: 'critics laugh, said I made a fortune off of his past/all I did was build a dynasty off of his passion…' The interesting thing is that B.I.G. has always been the linchpin of Bad Boy Records. None of the label's other artists, with perhaps the exception of Mase, have ever come close to living up to the hype and sales of the big man. The strangest thing, however, is that just as the man formerly known as Puffy comments on how he built his house; he also drops into egocentric patter that almost seems like a dis to his dearly departed friend. In short, he straight up takes credit for creating Biggie and turning him into the talented superstar that he was: 'I took him from coal to diamond/I molded his mind into the most phenomenal artist of any and all time…' Call me cynical, but usually when paying tribute to somebody you don't go out of your way to point out how you made them who they were. One can almost see Biggie rolling over in his grave, his thick voice tinged with a hint of menace: 'Puff said what!?'
Biography
Christopher Wallace was born on May 21, 1972, in Brooklyn, New York. His parents had Jamaican descent. The father left the family when Chris was just eighteen months and this fact made him never think anything good about the old man. He studied together with Busta Rhymes and Jay-Z. Christopher’s mother worked hard day and night to support her son and protect him from the mean streets, but this was not enough. As Chris made friends with the other guys outside he named himself B.I.G. and took up drug dealing. At that time, rapping was no more than just a hobby for the young man. As the friends kept telling him how good he was at freestyles, Chris gave it a try and made a demo. Spread widely throughout New York clubs, this record eventually caught the eye of Sean Combs (widely known as Puff Daddy), a celebrated producer. He gave Chris his stage name Notorious B.I.G. and decided to turn the young man’s talent into a big rapping act. Trying to support his little daughter, B.I.G. kept selling drugs, which went contrary to Combs’s rules. He made the young rapper quit it and commit himself solely to music.
In 1994, Notorious B.I.G. released his debut album, Ready To Die. Two weeks later, the record ran double platinum, exploding a bomb in the American hip-hop society. The new rap star from New York became the person who could finally bring the fame back to the East Coast hip-hop from the leading West Coast. His songs, soaked in his vicious memories of the wrongful past, appeared a sincere revelation of the criminal life that found a huge response all over the USA. Along with his unrivaled skill to rhyme the words rapidly, B.I.G. was excellent at combining gangster tales with romantic ballads. Unwillingly, he became the main figure in the war between the two rap schools of the States. Tupac Shakur, a leading performer from the other coast, released an outrageous song defiling the image of his new competitor from New York. Notorious B.I.G. restrained himself from the direct reply. However, the slaying of Tupac shortly afterwards raised the flux of speculations on Wallace’s involvement into this affair. Apart from this, the rapper had numerous troubles with the law. He was arrested several times for a number of offences, including battering, drugs and weapon possession and robbery.
During the preparation of his second album, Life After Death, Notorious B.I.G. suffered a car accident that chained him to a wheelchair for a while and then made him use a cane. In March 1997, two weeks before the release of Life After Death, Notorious B.I.G. was murdered in his car by a streak of gun shots from another vehicle. Although he was immediately delivered to a hospital, the doctors were unable to save his life ruined by the four bullets in his chest. This killing has remained unsolved until now and raised a lot of alleged connections with Tupac’s murder. Wallace’s tragic death made his second album even more anticipated. This resulted in the sensational distribution of eighteen million copies if this CD worldwide. Several months later, Puff Daddy released his debut long player with a lot of vocal parts performed by B.I.G. and the song I’ll Be Missing You commemorating him. Wallace left a rich legacy to the supporters of his art and hip-hop in general. Even after his death, Puff Daddy kept releasing his albums where one could hear B.I.G. singing with other celebrated performers. Probably, the last one, saw light in 2005. The CD, titled Duets: The Final Chapter, mostly featured the fragments and remakes of his old songs. The name of Notorious B.I.G. is likely to draw broad attention again as the biographical movie Notorious is ready to appear on the screens in 2009.
