In Which I Discuss Things That I Was Actually Too Young To Remember Properly

So, this morning, the movie "Notorious" was on, and I decided to watch it because...well, I had heard about it once and then I never heard about it again. If, for whatever reason, you don't know what it's about, it's about the life of rapper Notorious B.I.G. And on some level, it's also about the East Coast-West Coast hiphop rivalry (because that was a huge part of B.I.G.'s life toward the end) that started in the early '90s, and ended with the murders of Tupac/2pac and Notorious B.I.G./Big Poppa/Biggie Smalls respectively.

As a small(er) child, I had three Notorious B.I.G. songs that were a part of my repertoire: Hypnotize, Juicy and Big Poppa. I also had one Tupac song that I knew pretty well, and know every word to now: Changes. I, for the life of me, cannot figure out how exactly it was I knew these songs, but I know 'em.

That's not really my point. I've spent basically my whole day listening to Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. And I've come to the decision that rap needs to turn around and look at these two. Because...there are no words to describe how great both of them are. As someone who, for the most part, greatly dislikes rap, I could easily listen to Biggie or Tupac at any point of the day. Tupac's voice, Biggie's storytelling...seriously, just pick one of their songs, any of their songs, and you'll find what I'm talking about.

However, this is lost on a lot of people, particularly YouTube commenters. If you look on videos, you'll see a lot of people commenting about who is better: Biggie or 2pac. Even then, sometimes you'll get names like Eminem and Justin Bieber (or as one YouTube commentator called him, Justin Beaver) thrown in their, leaving people to just be like "WHAT?" but for the most part, a lot of it is still that East/West Coast rivalry.

It's messed up. Especially because the reason both Biggie and 2pac are dead is because of this stupid rivalry. I mean, it's stupid in my opinion, and there's no reason to dredge it up.

The sad thing is, this all could've been prevented. Maybe not the entire conflict, but the specific tensions between 2pac and Biggie. Perhaps, they could've even come together for a song when shit got rough, and perhaps settled the whole dispute without either of them dying and depriving the world of good rap.

There was a HUGE PR mistake that Bad Boy Records (the record company of Notorious B.I.G) made. Biggie released a single in '94, when 2pac was shot in NY called "Who Shot Ya". This led people to believe that Biggie had something to do with attack on 2pac. So then, 2pac released a single in retaliation, 'Hit 'Em Up'. I'm not gonna lie, both are mad catchy and I listen to both.

Just think about it. If they hadn't released this song as a single, if they had just decided to cut it in light of what happened...well, maybe it wouldn't have changed the eventual outcome, but maybe the entire rivalry between 2pac and Biggie wouldn't exist. Just a thought.

If you're interested in the East Coast-West Coast hiphop rivalry, look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Coast%E2%80%93West_Coast_hip_hop_rivalry#Background

I know it's been 13-14 years, since the deaths of Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac, respectively, but still. Rap lost a lot when the world lost them. R.I.P. <3