Evan Nabavian sold more powder than Johnson and Johnson. Inviting your friends over to remix Biggie songs is a really dumb idea unless you’re DJ House Shoes and your friends are today’s eminent left field rap producers. Shoes sent Biggie Smalls acapellas to his buddies and came back with a pack of experimental remixes, a… Continue reading »
Puff Daddy and BIG head to London in March of 1995. Puff immediately tells the crowd of the Hammersmith Palais that this is a “celebration of being black.” Then he brags about having all the champagne and then they detonate into “Who Shot Ya.” Then Biggie raps over the remixes to “Real Love” and his… Continue reading »
http://youtu.be/F_i7WGOwrOg I’m hesitant to extrapolate broad ideas about complex artists after watching three and a half minutes of footage originally recorded 19 years ago. But this is Biggie and Pac and I have a book coming out on them in two months, so fuck it. (Pre-order now). This is no mere idyll captured by Dream… Continue reading »
Joshua Lerner is an invisible bully like The Gooch. In one of the many excellent anecdotes from Something From Nothing: The Art of Rap, Ice-T tells what it was like to hear Melle Mel grab the mic in the early days of hip-hop in the Bronx. When Mel would take his turn, it would sound… Continue reading »
Be willing to suffer through the subpar camera work to catch Biggie constantly rolling his eyes and seething at having to sit next to Craig Mack. According to the YouTube description: this was taped in 1994 at the Arista BMG Dallas Office Branch. Biggie & Craig Mack were both on the road together as the… Continue reading »
Image via Up North Trips Abe Beame would like to pay his respects…. The following is a list of Knicks who could’ve served as the possible victim in the Notorious B.I.G.’s “Story to tell”: Doug Christie, Hubert Davis, Ron Grandison, Derek Harper, Doc Rivers, Anthony Mason, Allan Houston, Chris Jent and Larry Johnson. Why does… Continue reading »
Image via Up North Trips You can guess what Abe Beame’s Spotify looks like. A natural progression for great young writers often includes an apprenticeship based on autobiographical material and intense emotion. As the writer matures and spends his personal capital, the focus centers on craft: ironing out dialogue, developing character and story. It’s hard… Continue reading »
Abe Beame knows Captain Ron too. Consider everything you know about Arizona Ron. We know what part of Arizona he’s from, what kind of car he drives, the crew he used to run with, that he has a predilection for the Isley Brothers, he’s bilingual, the motto he has tattooed around his gun wounds, how… Continue reading »
Abe Beame interrupts his series of obsessive nerding out to bring you a think piece on “Hardcore.” It’s difficult to gauge how responsible Biggie was for its composition. He executive produced the album, shows up with small, perfectly placed touches, lends Kim his delivery and cadence, but gets no explicit writing credits. But to ignore… Continue reading »
Abe Beame beat Cease-A-Leo at Tecmo Bowl Biggie followed Ready to Die with Junior Mafia’s Conspiracy—a spotty album with two great singles, but one notable for being one of the first times a crew got a deal exclusively due to their friendship with a talented, successful rapper. Ultimately, Junior Mafia birthed one decent personality in… Continue reading »
Excellent Adventures
Bogus Journeys
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Listening
Jeff Weiss
Sach O
Douglas Martin
Aaron Matthews
Doc Zeus
Max Bell
Evan Nabavian
Tosten Burks
Matt Shea
Slava P
Jimmy Ness
Jonah Bromwich
Adam Wray
Reading
Jeff Weiss
Sach O
Douglas Martin
Max Bell
Aaron Matthews
Slava P
Jonah Bromwich
Doc Zeus
Adam Wray
Alex Piveysky
Evan Nabavian
Watching
Jeff Weiss
Sach O
Douglas Martin
Max Bell
Aaron Matthews
Evan Nabavian
Jonah Bromwich
Slava P
Doc Zeus
Matt Shea
Adam Wray
Alex Piveysky
Inner Sanctum
Miscellaneous Apostles
Local Natives
Understanding Media
The Sporting Life
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
Miscellaneous
