Once upon a time in a universe far, far away, HipHopDX used to host blogs. Through Meka, Brillyance, Aliya Ewing and others, readers got unfiltered opinions on the most current topics in and beyond Hip Hop. After a few years, a couple redesigns and the collective vision of three different Editors-In-Chief, blogs are back. Well, sort of. Since our blog section went the way of two-way pagers and physical mixtapes, Twitter, Instagram and Ustream have further accelerated the pace of current events in Hip Hop. Rappers beef with each other 140 characters at a time, entire mixtapes (and their associated artwork) can be released via Instagram, and sometimes these events require a rapid reaction.
As such, we’re reserving this space for a weekly reaction to Hip Hop’s current events. Or whatever else we deem worthy. And the “we” in question is myself, Andre Grant and Ural Garrett. Collectively we serve as HipHopDX’s Features Staff. Aside from tackling stray topics, we may invite artists and other personalities in Hip Hop to join the conversation. Without further delay, here’s this week’s “Stray Shots.”
Reached A Level Of Pop Culture Relevance That Grew Higher After His Death
Ural: To this day, new details are revealed about who and what Tupac was. On the flipside, Biggie has had a specific controlled narrative that’s worked well enough for him to sound safe. Big’s history has been controlled due in part to his family and friends unanimously agreeing to a perfect representation of him. With Diddy being the success he is now, the man known for giving the world “Juicy” has been giving a golden platform. For the legacy of Tupac, that’s been a huge problem. Multiple people have multiple accounts on the man himself. Moreover, people in control of his estate can’t seem to get it together even for a movie. Till this day, there are layers to Pac that are still being discovered. That level of mystery has elevated him into a rebellious pop culture icon. Last year alone, from the stories of Pac’s last words with police before his death to videos proving his prophecies only added to his story. The amount of respect Hip Hop has for Big as an emcee won’t be eclipsed by Pac. Outside of that, things get murky.
Put Raw Emotion Over Technical Skill
Andre: “My slow flow’s remarkable,” B.I.G crooned, and it was. His lines were simple yet powerful, avoiding the tongue-twisting double time flow of a young Jigga, and the crazy metaphors of Nasir Jones. B.I.G was a storyteller, his rhymes were relational and conversational, even when he was talking about riding on his enemies or slinging crack rock. Still, he relied on pure technical ability to convey his point. Riding on a beat with a flow and lyrical acumen that was for the most part unmatched.’Pac strangled beats, rapping around them mostly, and relying on pure emotion and voice variance to convey the volcanic eruption that was awaiting each rhyme. In the end, Tupac won the zeitgeist of the age with just that. Because, as Maya Angelou once said, “People will forget what you say, but they will never forget how you make them feel.” This particular ability he had in spades.
Was a Revolutionary Social Icon, Not Just A Hip Hop One
Ural: There’s one scene in Notorious where Big gives an honest view of his interaction with Tupac. The description of Pac was one who had several personalities. He was the thug, poet, actor, wildchild and black nationalist along with an host of others. Let someone like Madonna tell it, he was a sex symbol; the James Dean of the hood. This meant that any and everyone could take a particular piece from for inspiration. Just like Jesus Christ ushered in Christianity and its numerous denominations, Pac did the same for Hip Hop. Game, Lil Wayne, Lil Boosie, 50 Cent all took cues from the Thug Life persona. Meanwhile, everyone from Kendrick Lamar to Dead Prez have fused extreme context socio economic themes into their works. Then there’s everyone in-between like Kanye. Biggie was the rapper’s rapper. No one in that timespan spit with his level of finesse and mechanical delivery while delivering commercial hits. Themes of being a drug dealer in Brooklyn were told with a level of articulation unheard of at the time. Unfortunately, those hood to mafioso aspirations never reached past that.
His Prolonged Death Led To Several Conspiracy Theories
Andre: After getting bombarded with shots through every which part of his body, ‘Pac lived another seven days while in a medically induced coma. His will to live was ferocious and has become legendary. So legendary in fact, that people joke (some with real seriousness) that Tupac is still alive. He’s hiding out in Cuba they’ll say or, they saw him just the other day. It doesn’t help that his status as the Che Guevera of Hip Hop makes his visage a powerful statement in how to be anti-establishment. How to be free. Just last year the CIA tweeted they didn’t know where Tupac was (shoutout to that person, we see you) and Suge Knight (tongue firmly in cheek) mused that ‘Pac was somewhere hiding out. For everything he’s done regarding the vitality and forthrightness with how he lived his life, his legacy has far outlived his work.
Had Enough Post Mortem Work To Reach Generations After His Death
Ural: How many people thought Kendrick Lamar acquired an unreleased interview with Tupac for To Pimp A Butterfly before news broke it was actually an old interview done by Swedish journalist Mats Nileskär years before his death? Many, for one obvious reason. To this day, there are still numerous unreleased recordings that’ll probably end up on some famous rapper’s album eventually. The reason? It’s a known fact that Pac recorded vigorously before his death. That’s allowed tracks like Keyshia Cole’s “Playa Cardz Right” or the “Out In A Blaze” collaboration between Young Buck and The Outlawz. And then there’s that “Right Now” track Bun B managed to get with unrecorded Pimp C vocals as well. While Biggie’s calculated flows and album making process earned him better critical reception at the time, that didn’t leave much room for making anything less than perfection. Those decisions made Ready To Die and Life After Death instant classics but lessened the ability for future artists to have the same opportunities. Doesn’t help that outside of appealing to core Biggie fans, Born Again and Duets: The Final Chapter didn’t set the world on fire.
Andre Grant is an NYC native turned L.A. transplant that has contributed to a few different properties on the web and is now the Features Editor for HipHopDX. He’s also trying to live it to the limit and love it a lot. Follow him on Twitter @drejones.
Ural Garrett is an Los Angeles-based journalist and HipHopDX’s Senior Features Writer. When not covering music, video games, films and the community at large, he’s in the kitchen baking like Anita. Follow him on Twitter @Uralg.
Tupac is an international icon. every continent and country in the world knows who Pac is, his lifestory alone is near mythical coupled with his raw talent and the fact he seemed to have a prophetic sense about himself and how his life would end.Outside of the US Biggie is known in few countries except some rap skill there’s nothing exceptional about him.
Nothing exceptional except Biggie’s exceptional skills on the mic. He had the art down, and did it in a way that couldn’t be duplicated. However, I agree that Pac had a bigger impact everywhere but NY, and made music with more meaning.
Exactly! Sorry everyone but Tupac is the most influential, greatest rapper of ALL TIME! all around the world he is well known and praised. Simply because his music wasn’t just music to bob your head to, like 99.9% of music today is, his music was to create an impact on yourself, your mind and his cause. a cause to end the suffering of people, the oppressed, and end the corrupt powers of us enslaved in a slavery most people are blinded from. 2PAC and OUTLAWZ all day everyday.
not a day goes by where I don’t blast TUPAC in my car!
Because, to this day, people can relate to what Pac said in his songs. Where as Biggies songs have the shock value and lyrical ability. Biggie was a piece of shit, some of the shit he said was just dead wrong.
good word play you can be a rapper
Right, but Pac’ was shooting cops and raping bitches soooo…..
Great article Makaveli the Don the goat
This article is on point.
Tupac fans are insecure fuckboys.
Aww the Piggy fanboy is mad LMAO!
very on point.
2pac was better hands fuckin down!
This is the stupidest fucking article ever
agreed. stupid ass article
Aww another Piggie dickrider/Pac hater getting her panties in a bunch lol you don’t like something move on… as simple as that. But you actually took the time out of your schedule to comment lol U mad bro? Should’ve told your fat bastard boyfriend Piggie to have a bigger influence on people instead of eating cheeseburgers. And Jared (nice white boy name BTW lol) is probably just another Piggie Smalls groupie too.
Simply PAC & BIGGIE are overrated and HHDX is hosted by stans
I love the haters who can’t back up their comments on how tupac is overrated.
All the hater does is diss on the fan, not tupac, simply because it’s difficult
To give a valid reason why the best rapper is overrated, huh?
Pac brought content to music that is rarely seen these days, especially on a mainstream level.
TRANSLATION: Biggie was better!
Says you and 10% of the world lol
Biggie is the most bitten rapper of all time. No other rapper has had his lines used in other people music more than biggie. Still to this day you can’t go through a month without hearing a biggie line on someone’s song. It’s crazy.
You must not listen to pac much
Yet every rapper always mentions Pac. They even try to duplicate his appereance… It’s ridiculous. GOAT
Pac is to rap what Bob Marley was to Reggae, what Jordan was to basketball, what Ruth was to baseball, what Elvis was to RocknRoll, what Michael Jackson was to pop. Are there better in their respective fields? Arguably. But when our culture as a whole completely identifies with an individual, they are at top of the game. No random 60 year old white person that doesnt know rap doesnt know Big. But they damn well know Pac. Pac = GOAT
Couldn’t of said it better
PAC WAS THE REALEST ONLY PERSON FROM THIS GENERATION EVEN CLOSE IS… YESS NIGGA THE GAME!!!!!! PAC GOAT BUT GAME AS FAR AS THESE NEW NIGGAZ…. NOBODY RAPS WITH THAT PASSION!!! GAME DISSES NIGGAZ LIKE PAC …. and niggas try to say its name droppin… Naw nigga its keepin it real dissin bitch ass niggaz thats fuckin up hiphop. say what u want but biggie good story teller but all made up shit! PAC THE FUKIN GOAT REAL LYRICS REAL PASSION REAL PAIN! GAME… REAL NIGGA with the best hiphop understanding out of all these new niggaz!!!!! GAME with songs like dont need your love, one night, start from scratch… str8 fya … havent heard a rapper make songs close to the shit Game makes since Pac died and Game came out!!!!!
My heart misses Tupac fuck his enemies u bitches gone get it,it’s not over Tupac was the Don of the rap game..Niggas gone hate u for whatever u do and Tupac was so strong he never bowed down to no man and they snuck and took him away Fucking COWARDS couldn’t face him head on..R.I.P your real fan fo life reppin u baby
1. Public Enemy, Ice Cube, Grandmaster Flash and X Clan did already political rap. 2. Pac was a contradicting rapper talking about peace and then dissing every eastcoast rapper. 3. Hes more popular then Biggie because he MADE MORE ALBUMS then Biggie. 4. 2pac started to have a big mouth because of Suge. Pac was skinny and not intimidating. Do your homework DX
Pac was and is the greatest hands down
PAC simply had a larger library music, crazy trials/tribulations and a longer diverse career (film, outlawz etc). That’s it. I prefer PAC but there is just more material. The small amount of work biggie did was more consistent tho. If biggie had lived longer to release more material , who knows
I wonder how many people here were actually listening to both artists at the time because plenty people hated both of them before they died and then, changed their opinion. There were lots of east coast hiphop heads who hated PAC especially
Motherfucking Don
2pac got it truly..n will still b considered the greatest of all tym..all tymz even the present,n we shudnt overlook the fact that biggie z still a relevant example of wat made todayz hiphop with his clever style n flow he definately holds a spot in the hiphop hall of fame
Pac was good but I think biggie was great. We are trying to compare tupac who had at least 5 albums n was very successful with biggie, who ddnt even live to see the launch of his 2nd album. For me, the fact that biggie n tupac r being in competition for da greatest hip hop legend is a testament to biggie’s greatness. Imagine how the argument wld change, if biggie lived to release 3 more albums. Anyway, even though Pac has a lot of tracks out there more artistes hv used biggie’s lines than any other.
The only people who think or consider Biggie the GOAT or put him in that conversation are fuckin morons lol Big didn’t do quite the sufficient work required to be n that category. That’s like q boxer being labeled the GOAT after only 15 fights just because he had 15 KOs lol it’s ridiculous. All Biggie had was flow lol Pac had it all..an all around game. He was more thsn just an MC like Biggie rapping about the same stupid shit in every sing. And just the way Pac lived his life and his “Fuck it” attitude made people like this guy. All theshit Pac went through made you wanna cheer for him even more. That’s why’s he’s recognized and well known worldwide and Biggie is not. Look at Pac’s murals around the world…that just speaks for itself and the love people had or HAVE for Tupac. You can keep saying Bighie was better but ALWAYS remember you will ALWAYS be the minority…the WORLD knows whoyou the GOAT is when it comes to hip-hop. Period.
you sound like a 2pak stan boy< LOLOLOL @ this chump
biggie out rapped 2puc his entire career
only difference is tupex acted like a child… babies leading babies
Pac is popular because of everything besides his music. Now after his death it is his music that people are left with so of coarse he has more fans. But read the artice do the knowlege to what is being said. Biggie was hands down a better rapper, and made better songs than Pac. People loved Pac’s image, the character that he portrayed in the public eye. He was always in front of a camera doing something to keep you interested. How many pictures of tupac with his shirt off wearing a bandana have you seen? Juice was an ok movie but Pac nailed the part of Bishop the troubled teen that goes on a crazy power trip the instant he touched a gun. The hood loved Bishop almost as much as they loved Tony Montana. Then he does Poetic Justice and between that and “Brenda” and “Keep Ya Head Up” all the little hood chicks fell in love with Pac. He became the sensitive bad boy gangsta Super Thug of hood dreams. The beef with Big just drew him more attention. But throughout his first 3 albums his rapping was almost amateurish the art of rapping Tupac was not a master of. Tupac made up for his lack of rapping by beefing, people wanted to here who Pac was going to dis. I didn’t mater how well he rapped because he never presented it a rap battle. Then at the height of all this attention and controversy he gets killed and the one time Actor, Media Sensation, out spoken thug, is gone and all that is left is his music which now is the only thing left to connect all of those fans with all of those aspects of Pac. The music became away for everyone to remember him and reminisce but the music be popular didn’t some how make it better music Pac is still just an average rapper, he’s loved for everything else but fans express that love by listening and praising his music to the point that its absurd. Pac is not even top ten if based solely on his music. This is basically how my list comes together. I know some young people don’t have the perspective of the impact that Rakim made or what KRS-One or Mele Mel did but I was there when “The Message” came out, that song was first time rap was taken seriously by people outside of NYC Streets, breaking ground like that is 1000% time more important then how many records somebody is selling or how popular someone is today now that the music is mainstream.
Rakim
Jay Z
Nas —-> personally I rank Nas above Jay but I know he popular so I put my preference aside
KRS-One
B.I.G.
LL Cool J
ICE Cube
Eminem
RUN-DMC —–> It’s a group but it was too important to leave out.
Andre 3000
Big Pun
Snoop Dog
Tupac
Big Daddy Kane
Scarface
Mele Mel
Common
Too Short
Your Favorite Wu Tang Member
Kool G. Rap
QTip
CanIBus
Talib Kwelie
Black Thought
Grand Puba
Your Second Favorite Wu Tang Member
Cee-Lo Green
2pac supersupreme stomped Biggie,end of discussion.
“Biggie was the rapper’s rapper. No one in that timespan spit with his level of finesse and mechanical delivery while delivering commercial hits….”
Ever had of someone called Nas? He is just as good if not better
OK lets say 2pac is 100% dead got shot in 1996 which is definitely most likely. The man had more albums release after his death than he did when he was alive. We ain’t just talking tracks that are trash and missed the album for a reason this man had hit after hit after hit come out after his death. Too make that much music while be an actor in many movies each year and you have enough tracks in the vault to create a legendary hits cd that no one would of heard at the time. The man put these 3 songs on a movie soundtrack Lost Souls, Starin through my rearview, made niggaz (these are all good songs worthy of album material) Then you got the fact he made some of these songs in 30minutes with writing and recording. Like California Love (Dr Dre even said he got out of jail, went to studio, Dre played him a beat california love one, 10-15 minutes later hes ready to go spit in the booth 1 take and this is a song that still gets lots of play time 20 fing years later! There is tons and tons of song like this. There is no other rapper EVER who can make a hit in the little amount of time it took 2pac. Why 2pac has dominated hiphop and not biggie the answer is simple look at biggies albums…look at 2pac’s albums. (They both had basically the same amount of time to record albums before their deaths) Biggie released album 1994. then in 1995 released colaboration album with Junior Mafia, then died March 9, 1997, Almost 3 years after your first solo album and you still ain’t got another album or enough songs? Then after his death you got Life after death 97, Born Again 99. With 2pac you got 91 2Pacalypse Now, 93 Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z… 94 colab album Thug Life: Volume 1 95 Me Against the world (Album goes #1 while hes in prison) 96 All Eyez on Me(DoubleDiscCD 27songs), Then after his death you got 96 The Don Killuminati: The 7 Day Theory, 97 R U Still Down? (Remember Me)(DoubleDiscCD 26songs), 98 Greatest Hits(some unheard songs)(DoubleDiscCD 25songs 3 new), 99 colab album Still I Rise, 2001 Until the End of Time (DoubeDiscCd 29songs), 2002 Better Dayz(DoubeDiscCd 26songs, 2004 Loyal To The Game, 2006 Pac’s Life
Like for hits released after his death you got(All these songs could’ve been major singles on albums):
1. Changes
2. Thugz Mansion
3. Better Dayz
4. Ballad of a Dead Soulja
5. Breathin
6. Fuckin wit the Wrong Nigga
7. Ghetto Gospel
8. Happy Home
9. I Wonder If Heaven Got a Ghetto
10. Letter 2 My Unborn
11. Niggaz Nature
12. One Day At a Time
13. Out on Bail
14. Runnin’
15. Soon As I Get Home
16. Still Ballin’
17. Street Fame
18. They Don’t Give a Fuck About Us
19. Unconditional Love
20. Until the End of Time
21. Uppercut
22. When We Ride On Our Enemies
23. Who Do U Believe In
24. Lost Souls (off Gangrelated Movie ST)
25. Starin’ Through My Rear View (off Gangrelated Movie ST)
26. Made Niggaz (off Gangrelated Movie ST)
I lived in the life and times of both Pac and Biggie.I was listen to Rakim Allah before them.I remember the N.W.A and I saw the new dawn that Nas ushered in with Illmatic.But I loved Tupac,not for a thug persona,but for his music.Kane was a ‘swinger’ before Biggie,and that is the style that Biggie found and ran with,and pefected-but he did not found it.Then came back,a fresh and different flow and like Eminem said,with Tupac,you could actually feel what he was saying.Yes,if everytime you think of Tupac you forget about Trapped,So Many Tears,Me Against The World,God Bless The Dead,I Ain’t Mad At Cha,.Changes etc and remember only California Love or Thug n Me Thug n U then you won’t know that Tupac had a versitile style which allowed him flow like a peaceful stream over different beats.He rapped from the heart.Some would say that was emotion…raw emotion.But I have spent time studying great leaders,and the oustanding gift that draws people to them even before they utter a single word,is that phenomena called charisma,Tupac had loads of it.Biggie just had his flow,his rhymes,yet Tupac inspired and touched people in a special way.I would listen to Biggie and it would be like having had conversations with a drunk,incredible but forgetable.But with Tupac,it was like listening to a touching speech by your favourite activist,your Martin King or Malcom X…it was like a sermon from a powerful evangelist…he touched you,encouraged you,healed you.Because of that,he is gonna always be better than Biggie,because he was better human being who lived fully.